It’s a social scam.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, nearly 30% of people who reported being scammed in 2025 said the swindle began on social media.
The agency said losses from these scams reached $2.1 billion in 2025, eight times the amount reported in 20220.
Experts maintain that because most scams aren’t reported to the government, the true figure could likely be much higher.
Social media is a swindlers’ paradise; fake profiles can be created, accounts hacked, and friend lists targeted. Scammers can target users based on what they post, and by purchasing ads, they have access to the same tools that legitimate businesses use to track age, interests, and spending habits.
All age groups, except those 80 and over, reported losing more money to scams that started on social media than to any other contact method.
For the 80+ crowd, social media scams ranked second after phone calls.
Shopping scams are the most commonly reported social media scam; more than 40% of victims say the scheme began when they ordered something they’d seen in an ad.
These ads lead users to unfamiliar websites where they pay for things that never arrive or receive counterfeit items.
According to reports, these disappointing dupes are typically shipped from China, and the cost of return shipping makes returns impossible.
Meta reportedly determined that about one-quarter of all scam ads on its platforms originated from sources in China – more than any other country. Meta employees described China in internal documents as the company’s top “scam exporting nation.”
While shopping scams were the most pervasive social media con, investment scams were the most financially devastating. More than half of the reported losses, some $1.1 billion, were attributed to investment scammers.
These scams are initiated with an ad or post that promises to teach you how to invest, or an invitation to join a WhatsApp group full of “successful investors.” Victims are directed to fake investment platforms where they are encouraged to create an account.
This type of scam is a bit of a long game and a double-down, as users see fake profits and can even withdraw small amounts, all in an effort to build trust and engender more investment. When people lose money, secondary scammers swoop in with promises to recover secondary losses for a fee.
Lonely hearts also account for serious losses.
According to reports, nearly 60% of people who lost money to a romance scam in 2025 said it started on a social media platform. In these scenarios, scammers use information drawn from user profiles to target and trick them, inventing a crisis that requires cash or offering fake investment opportunities.
Other romance scammers request nude photos and then extort money by threatening to send the images to the victim’s social media contacts.
Housing hopefuls are another vulnerable demographic. A recent analysis of reports about fake rental home listings found that about half were posted on Facebook.
Americans are disproportionately affected by scamming, fielding nearly 100 scam attempts a month, the highest rate in the world.
As The Post previously reported, Facebook accounts for the vast majority of scams on social media, according to data from fraud-reporting platform SafelyHQ.
When the fraud reports mention where the victims got scammed, Facebook is cited a whopping 85% of the time, with WhatsApp and Instagram a distant second and third. Further, in 2025, users reported losing far more money to Facebook scams than to scams via text or email.
Reuters earlier reported that Meta expected to earn $16 billion — or 10% of its revenue — by running scam ads.
High-risk advertisers are allowed to keep running ads in exchange for higher fees – a system that Meta said was meant to discourage bad behavior, but experts warned is tantamount to “pay to play” for bad actors.
To keep yourself safe from social media scams, the FTC recommends the following precautions
- Limit who can see your posts and contacts on social media. Visit your privacy settings to set some restrictions, so scammers have less to work with.
- Never let someone you have met only on social media direct your investment decisions. Instead, learn more about spotting investment scams.
- Before you buy, check out the company. Search online for its name plus “scam” or “complaint.”
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.
