Arizona is one of the least safe states for dating, study says

Arizona ranks high on STI rates and romance scams, according to a new report.

August 19, 2024

Dating can be fun as long you take proper safety precautions. neajjean/ CC BY-SA 2.0/Flickr

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"Safety first" is a good rule in many aspects of life, including online dating. The rise of catfishing, romance scams and just plain awful people means that you should be on your guard while scrolling on Bumble, Tinder and the like.

And to make things worse, a new study reports that, when it comes to online dating safety, Arizona is among the worst states in the nation.

Privacy Journal, a website devoted to online safety, recently a study based on data from the Internet Crime Complaint Center, the Federal Trade Commission, the Centers for Disease Control and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They looked rates of several issues, including romance scams reported, identity theft reported, fraud reported, registered sex offenders, prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases and prevalence of violent crime.

Privacy Journal's Samuel Chapman wrote in the report, "First, our team of researchers took the statistics on all the factors that might lead to a dangerous online date per 100,000 residents of each state. We weighed all the outcomes by their relative importance and then summed up all the factors to produce an absolute rating for each state."

Arizona, we regret to say, ranks 46 out of 50 states.

"Coming in fifth on the list of riskiest states for online dating is Arizona, the most likely place in the nation for a person to fall victim to a romance scammer — 9.2 out of every 100,000 residents of the Grand Canyon State are targeted each year. Arizonans have the 10th-most STDs nationwide and the eighth-highest rate of fraud," the report states.

Which states are we safer than? That would be Florida (47), Georgia (48), Nebraska (49) and Nevada (50).

The safest states reportedly are Vermont (1), Maine (2), New Hampshire (3), Kentucky (4) and Idaho (5).

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Jennifer Goldberg is the Music and Culture editor of Phoenix New Times. She joined the New Times staff in February 2016. In her role, Jennifer writes and publishes profiles of both local and regional musicians, previews upcoming performances and provides guides on the best of Phoenix’s entertainment scene. She also oversees the Best of Phoenix. Jennifer previously worked for Jewish News of Greater Phoenix. During her career, Jennifer has received awards from the Arizona Press Club, the Arizona Newspaper Association and the American Jewish Press Association. She holds a bachelor’s of arts in English from Arizona State University.

Contact: Jennifer Goldberg

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