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According to a new report from online investigation service , Illinois was the No. 13 most scammed state in 2021 due to romance scams, losing a record $20 million last year.
That’s up from $14 million in 2020 lost to romance scams as nationally, a record $547 million was lost to romance scams, up from $304 million in 2020, according to the report.
Romance scams have become the number one type of fraud recorded by the Federal Trade Commission, the report found, with victims losing $1.5 billion in the last five years.
Only seven states and the District of Columbia lost less money to romance scams in 2021 than they did in 2020.
Ways to tell it’s a scam, per the FTC, include:
- Scammers pretend to be from an organization you know, often pretending to contact you on behalf of the government or a government agency. Some also pretend to be from a business you know like a utility company, a tech company or even a charity asking for donations. Scammers use technology to change the phone number that appears on your caller ID, so names and numbers may not be real.
- Scammers say there’s a problem…
