The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed that people lost a staggering $2.7 billion on social media scams since 2021.
Reports show that scams on social media are a problem for people of all ages, but the numbers are most striking for younger people.
In the first six months of 2023, in reports of money lost to fraud by people 20-29, social media was the contact method more than 38% of the time. For people 18-19, that figure was 47%. The numbers decrease with age, consistent with generational differences in social media use.
The blog post reads.
FTC said the most frequently reported fraud loss in the first half of 2023 was from people who tried to buy something marketed on social media, coming in at a whopping 44% of all social media fraud loss reports.
Most of these reports are about undelivered goods, with no-show clothing and electronics topping the list. According to reports, these scams most often start with an ad on Facebook or Instagram.
In the first six months of 2023, FTC said more than half the money reported lost to fraud on social media went to investment scammers. To draw people in, these scammers promote their own supposed investment success, often trying to lure people to investment websites and apps that turn out to be bogus. They make promises of huge returns, and even make it look like an “investment” is growing. But if people invest, and reports say it’s usually in cryptocurrency, they end up empty-handed.
After investment scams, reports point to romance scams as having the second-highest losses on social media.
In the first six months of 2023, half of people who said they lost money to an online romance scam said it began on Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat.
To learn more about how to spot, avoid, and report scams—and how to recover money if you’ve paid a scammer—visit ftc.gov/scams. If you spot a scam, report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
