As you watch Netflix’s new documentary “The Tinder Swindler”, which is about a notorious conman who used the dating app to defraud multiple women, reports of romance scams have hit record highs as people lost a staggering $1.3 billion to romance scams in the last five years.
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According to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the numbers have skyrocketed in recent years, and 2021 was no exception as reported losses hit a record $547 million for the year.
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“That’s more than six times the reported losses in 2017 and a nearly 80 per cent increase compared to 2020. The median individual reported loss in 2021 was $2,400,” the FTC said in a statement on Thursday.
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A growing trend in 2021 was scammers using romance as a hook to lure people into bogus investments, especially cryptocurrency.
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In fact, the largest reported losses to romance scams were paid in cryptocurrency: $139 million last year alone.
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That’s a remarkable growth in…
