SALT LAKE CITY — Online scams almost doubled from pre-pandemic 2019 to 2021, according to FBI crime data analyzed by the anti-scam website Social Catfish.
According to their study, scams that were reported amounted to $3.5 billion lost in 2019 and rose to $6.9 billion lost in 2021.
Utahns made up $72 million of that 2021 total, ranking 23rd for total losses — though the only state that ranked higher with a smaller population than Utah was Nevada.
Among the scams claiming more victims was catfishing, which means pretending to enter into a long-distance romance in order to get money from a victim or to use the victim in a money-laundering scheme.
Yvonne Harlan, a 68-year-old divorcee, was a victim of such an attempted scam.
"I decided to go on Tinder just to see what was there," Harlan told FOX 13 News.
Living alone during the pandemic, Harlan was looking for companionship when a man calling himself Robert reached out.
"He called me and contacted me, sent me what I understand to be called 'love bombs,'" she said. "'Oh, you're so beautiful. I love you.' You know, 'let's spend our lives together.'"
Red flags — Harlan saw them, but she was clear.
"But I told him from the beginning, 'I don't have any money... just so you know,'" she said she told Robert.
That didn't deter him, though. He called twice a day and texted day and night.
"We talked about family, we talked about our goals in life, we talked about what we wanted to do, he told me that his wife had cheated on him with his business partner," Harlan said.
Robert told her he was an engineer who lived in the United States but was working on a contract in Turkey.
It was all fishy, but he wasn't asking for anything — until a month in, when contact ended for three days, followed by a story and a request.
"He told me he was in the hospital and that he had been injured and that he was unable to work because of this explosion," Harlan said. "He said, 'Why don't you support me in this? You know, I'm in trouble and I need to send you money and ask you to buy computers."
It didn't make sense, and Harlan is a paralegal — so she looked into the law.
"I did some research, and I found that if you receive money for someone from out of the country... they're money laundering," Harlan said. "There are criminal penalties if I were to do that."
The scam that "Robert" attempted is common, with the scammers often working in a call center in another country.
And while Harlan didn't lose any money, she said it still hurt to find out that she was in a long-distance relationship for weeks that turned out to be a lie. She has since cut off her use of social media, including dating sites — which she says she'll never use again.
Social Catfish is a company dedicated to preventing online scams through technology.
