Louisiana residents lost more than $43 million to online scams last year, almost double what was lost in 2020.
A report from Social Catfish, an online dating investigation service, using reports from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and the Federal Trade Commission, found nationally people lost $6.9 billion to online scams in 2021.
In Louisiana, 4,428 people reported losing $43 million to scams in 2021, with the average person losing more than $9,000, according to the report. That’s nearly double what was lost in 2020, which was $27 million.
“We’ve seen a bigger uptick in online purchase scams over the last couple of years that’s really taken more shape following the pandemic because so much traffic was driven online,” said Chris Babin, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Acadiana. “Scams being perpetrated online continue to be the number one scam continuing to impact consumers and that’s including here in the Acadiana area.
Those scams can be anything from fake websites, deals that are too good to be true, fake products being sold or a scammer duplicating a social media profile to convince others to give them money or personal identifying information.
“The increase in technology has actually given scammers a lot more tools to use against us,” Babin said. “Years ago, it was harder to pretend to be somebody that you weren’t.”
“Scammers are always trying to position themselves as somebody that we wouldn’t give a second thought to,” he added.
