According to a new study by LendingTree, of all 50 states, Nevada residents lost the most money to scams for the first nine months of 2023.
About $7 billion was lost to fraud nationwide.
Social media scams took the most money, and email scams were the most reported.
Matt Schulz, the Chief Credit Analyst of LendingTree says that people need to be more diligent and look out for the little things, but he says the scammers have gotten smarter.
"The bad guys are really good at what they do and they're getting better at it and it's getting harder to tell the bad guys from the good guys and that's why you really need to be diligent," he said.
Looking deeper into how much Nevada is impacted by fraud, Nevada residents lost $79.4 million to scams in the first nine months of 2023.
Nevada saw an 11.5 percent increase from last year.
During that time frame, 41,265 reports were filed with the average loss being about 1,900 per report.
When breaking things down by age, the 30 to 39 group filed the most reports, but the 60 to 69 age group lost the most money.
The two most notable types of scams are imposter and investment related scams.
Imposter scams are where people pretend to be a person you may know or a bank or organization you work with.
"Those imposter scams, I think we all have probably gotten those texts or email, kind of along those lines and it's really important to be watchful and avoid those if you can," Schulz said.
Investment scams are situations where you give your money to somebody for investing or handling it in a certain way.
"You're talking potentially about a lot of money and sometimes people even put their life savings into those sorts of things, and they can be absolutely devastating," Schulz said.
Schulz gave some tips for people to avoid scams.
Don't be willing to give out your personal information.
If you get an email from someone claiming to be a bank or an organization, make sure to look at their email address to see if it's legit.
If it doesn't or if you get a call that doesn't seem right, he says to trust your gut and talk to somebody to assess the situation.
Schulz also advises people to consistently check their credit reports and bank statements, even if it's a small purchase.
He says often scammers will make those purchases to test and see if you notice and then that's when things can really take a turn for worst.Â
