Internet crimes rose in 2021: Here’s how your state ranked

(NEXSTAR) – From romance scams to real estate schemes, the U.S. saw over 847,000 complaints of suspected internet crimes in 2021, a new FBI report shows. That’s a 7% increase from 2020.

The reported complaints amounted to financial losses totaling more than $6.9 billion. According to the FBI, business email and email account compromises left the largest toll of nearly $2.4 billion.

After email compromises, the FBI reports these crimes financially impacted victims hardest:

Investment scams/fraud: $1.4 billion
Confidence fraud/romance scams: $956 million
Personal data breaches: $517 million
Real estate/rental schemes: $350 million
Tech support scams: $347 million

The most common internet crime and the financial losses varied by state. In Utah, for example, non-payment/non-delivery crimes – meaning goods or services are shipped but never paid for, or payment is sent but the goods or services are never received – impacted the most victims. Victims lost the most money, more than $29.7 million – to business email or account email comprises, according to the FBI report.

A state-by-state breakdown of internet crimes reported in 2021 can be found here.

According to the FBI, those living in California were hit hardest by internet crimes, with victim losses totaling more than $1.2 billion. That is over twice the loss reported by Texas victims, which was $606 million, according to the FBI.

Here are the top 10 states with the highest victim losses:

California: $1.2 billion
Texas: $606 million
New York: $560 million
Florida: $528 million
Pennsylvania: $207 million
New Jersey: $203 million
Illinois: $184 million
Michigan: $181 million
Virginia: $172 million
Washington: $157 million

Most of these states also had the highest number of victims. California, again, topped out the list, reporting more than 67,000 internet crime victims in 2021. The second-highest state was Texas with over 41,000 victims.

The 10 states with the most victims are: