$2.1 Billion Vanished Through Social Media Last Year. Most of It Looked Completely Normal.
Last year, people in the United States told the Federal Trade Commission they lost $2.1 billion to scams that started on social media. Not on some shady corner of the internet you'd know to avoid. On the ordinary feeds where you check in on family, watch a recipe, and scroll past ads for things you almost buy.
That number has been climbing for five years straight. In 2020, reported losses to social media scams were $261 million. The next year it was $789 million. It rose every year after that, reaching $2.1 billion in 2025, about eight times where it started. And because most people never report a scam (by one estimate, fewer than 5% file a complaint), the real total is almost certainly higher.
One platform stands out. People reported losing more money to scams that began on Facebook than on any other site. More than they lost to scam texts and scam emails combined. WhatsApp and Instagram came next, a distant second and third.
This isn't about being naive
It's tempting to assume scams catch a certain kind of person: someone careless, or someone much older or much younger than you. The FTC's numbers say otherwise. Social media was the costliest way to get scammed for every age group under 80. People in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s all reported it among the top ways they lost money.
The reason is simpler: these scams have gotten very good at looking like the most normal thing on your screen.
Four scams hiding in your feed
Shopping scams were the most common by a wide margin. More than 40% of people who lost money started by ordering something they saw in an ad: clothes, makeup, car parts, even puppies. The ad led to an unfamiliar site, or one dressed up to look like a brand they trusted, dangling a big discount. Usually the item never arrived. When it did, it was a counterfeit or nothing like the photo, often shipped from overseas with return shipping so expensive that sending it back made no sense.
Investment scams took the most money by far: $1.1 billion, more than half the total. These often open with a post or ad offering to teach you how to invest, a friendly stranger who plays advisor, or a WhatsApp group full of "investors" sharing glowing results. They steer you to a real-looking platform where your balance climbs. You might even withdraw a small amount to be sure it works. It does, so you put in more. None of the profits are real, and some people get hit a second time by a scammer who promises to recover the lost money for a fee.
Romance scams lean on social media too. Nearly 60% of people who reported losing money to a romance scam said it began on a social platform. The pattern is patient: a warm connection built over weeks, then a sudden crisis that needs money, or a gentle nudge toward that same kind of fake investment app.
Job and housing scams round it out. One in three people who lost money to a job or business-opportunity scam said it started on social media. And when the FTC looked at fake rental listings, about half were posted on Facebook.
Why social media works so well for them
Scammers like these platforms for the same reasons real businesses do. They can buy ads and use the exact targeting tools a company would, reaching you by your age, your interests, the things you shop for. They can hack a real account and message that person's friends, so the scam arrives under a name you recognize. Or they spin up a fake profile from nothing. For very little money, a scammer can reach billions of people anywhere in the world and pick out the ones most likely to bite.
That's what makes these scams hard to feel coming. Nothing about them reads as a threat. What reaches you is an ad you'd plausibly click, a message from a friend, a group that looks like other people quietly getting ahead.
A few habits that make you a harder target
You don't need to log off to stay safe. A handful of small checks close most of the doors:
- Tighten who can see you. In your privacy settings, limit who can view your posts and your friend list. The less a stranger can learn about you, the less they have to work with.
- Vet an ad before you buy. Search the company's name plus "scam" or "complaint," and confirm the site is who it claims to be before you type in a card number. The FTC has a short guide to shopping online safely.
- Never take investment advice from someone you met online. However friendly or successful they seem, however good the screenshots look. Real returns aren't fast, guaranteed, or run through an app a stranger told you to download. The FTC lays out the common investment scam playbook.
- Get suspicious when withdrawing your money gets complicated. A surprise fee or tax to "unlock" your own funds is the scam itself.
If something already feels off, you can report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Those reports are how the FTC spots the patterns and warns the next person.
The plainest lesson from a year of $2.1 billion in losses is this: the danger no longer looks dangerous. It looks like the most ordinary thing on your feed. So if one of these shapes brought someone to mind, a parent who buys from ads, a friend who joined an investing group, they're the person worth sending this to.