Social media has become a cash cow for scammers. New data from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reveals a surge in fraud linked to social platforms, with consumers reporting $2.1 billion in losses in 2025 alone.
Key takeaways:
Social media scams inflicted $2.1 billion in reported losses in 2025
Nearly 1 in 3 scam victims said the fraud started on a social platform
Losses have grown eight-fold since 2020
Investment scams caused the biggest financial damage
Shopping scams remain the most common type
The costliest scam method
Nearly 30% of people who lost money to scams said the interaction began on social media.
Social media scams caused far more losses than any other contact method that scammers use to reach consumers—an eight-fold increase since 2020, according to the report.
Social media is now the most costly scam contact method, outpacing email, text, and other channels.
“Social media creates easy access to billions of people from anywhere in the world, making a scammer’s job easier at very little cost,” the FTC said. “Scammers may hack a user’s account, exploit what a user posts to figure out how to target them, or buy ads and use the same tools used by real businesses to target people by age, interests or shopping habits.”
Facebook leads the pack
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