FTC: Social Media Is a 'Golden Goose' for Scammers
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is highlighting the huge profits scammers are generating through fraud started on social media platforms.
The FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network found that since 2021, one in four people who report losing money through fraud said it started on social media. In total, between Jan. 2021 and June 2023, $2.7 billion has been lost to this type of fraud.
As the chart below clearly shows, that's more than any other method of contact, including websites, apps, phone calls, email, text messages, online ads or pop-ups, and snail mail.
It will come as little surprise that, although scams on social media can impact all age groups, younger people are much more susceptible to them due in no small part to "generational differences in social media use." The FTC found that in the first six months of 2023, 38% of the reported fraud by the 20-29 age group started on social media. For the 18-19 age group, that jumped to 47%.
The most succsseful types of social media fraud can be broken down into online shopping (44%), investment scams (20%), and romance scams (6%). However, it's the investment scams that manage to steal the largest amount of money from their victims, with more than half the money reported lost in the first six months of 2023 going to investment scammers.
As the FTC explains, "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."
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