The holiday online shopping season is already underway, as businesses run sales and deals before Black Friday in the week leading up to Thanksgiving.
But it’s not just about finding the best deal. A new study from Social Catfish, a company that provides identity and verification checks, expects online shopping scams to increase this holiday season. The Federal Trade Commission has found that online shopping is the number one scam reported in almost all states.
Social Catfish said the most common scams are fake websites, Secret Santa contests, and giveaways on Instagram.
When it comes to victims of online shopping scams, Missouri is the nation’s seventh most scammed state. The analysis arrived at this ranking by examining the 2020 FBI Internet Crime Report. He revealed that victims in Missouri lost a total of nearly $ 116 million to online scams in 2020.
That’s more than the surrounding states except Illinois, according to Social Catfish and the FBI:
- 6. Illinois
- 7. Missouri
- 23. Tennessee
- 32. Iowa
- 33. Oklahoma
- 34. Kansas
- 37. Arkansas
- 40. Kentucky
- 41. Nebraska
California is the country’s first state to be scammed. People who live there lost more than $ 621 million to online scams in 2020, according to the FBI report.
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