Catfish: To lure (someone) into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona.

Have you ever been catfished before? I really hope you said no. I am a HUGE fan of the MTV show "Catfish". If you've never seen it, 10/10 recommend watching all the seasons.

Apparently Illinois is a very catfish-able state. We were ranked NINTH in the country when it came to catfish scams in 2020. Maybe it's because everybody spent all year at home. We got lonely, we got bored, we got gullible, and we definitely spent too much time on the internet.

Here's the top 10 states who got catfished the most in 2020 -

  1. California
  2. Florida
  3. Texas
  4. Michigan
  5. New York
  6. Virginia
  7. Washington
  8. North Carolina
  9. Illinois
  10. Maryland

Illinois had 688 romance catfish cases. So, how much did that cost us?

According to Socialcatfish -

$14,036,350

WHAT?

Hey, at least we aren't as bad as California. They lost $120,492,182. Socialcatfish details -

This just goes to show how much people have relied on online dating within the past year to cure their loneliness. Due to desperation to find someone during the pandemic, people have fallen harder for these romance scammers whose only intentions are to steal their victims’ money.

Another crazy stat from last year detailed by WTVO was -

Dating app revenue exceeded $3 billion for the first time in 2020, creating unprecedented opportunity for scammers to prey on isolated victims during the pandemic.

So this just goes to show that just because you might be feeling lonely, or have some free time you're spending online, don't fall for any romance scams. We don't want Illinois being in the top 5 for 2021 romance scams.

H/T WTVO 

KEEP READING: These are the top 6 scams connected to the pandemic

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