Quarantine has lonely singles rushing to dating apps. In Florida, that could mean scams

The coronavirus pandemic may be keeping lots of us home, but it’s also driving even more of us to online dating.

And if you’re in Florida, that means you stand a big risk of being scammed.

SocialCatfish.com, a website that verifies identities - a useful tool in the land of the grifter - reports in its Most At-Risk States For Online Dating Scams that Tinder has seen a 10-15 percent increase per week because of the virus, with 25 percent increases in countries like Italy and Spain, where hard quarantines have been put into place.

The website also reports that Bumble reported a 21 percent increase in messages in the United States, with hard-hit states New York and San Francisco even higher at 26 percent and 23 percent respectively.

SocialCatfish expects Florida usage to rise, too. The problem? It’s one of most fertile spots in the country for catfishing, the illegal art of misrepresenting yourself online and luring an unsuspecting other into a relationship.

Using FBI data from 2019, SocialCatfish.com identifies Florida as the state with the second-most number of catfishing victims for 2019, with 1,363. California was no. 1, with 2,206. Following Florida are Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, Illinois, Virginia, Ohio and Georgia.

Who has the fewest of the 50 states? Vermont.

The website also has a few suggestions on identifying scammers, none of which should come as any surprise. Early red flags include wanting to move fast and reluctance to videochat; if they try to guilt-trip you into forking over money or salacious photos, SocialCatfish says, think twice.

This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 6:00 AM.