Apr 28, 2026 · 5 min read
Americans Lost $2.1 Billion to Social Media Scams Last Year—Facebook Was the Top Platform
A new FTC report shows social media fraud has grown eightfold since 2020. Investment scams alone accounted for $1.1 billion.
The Numbers
Americans lost $2.1 billion to scams that started on social media in 2025, according to data the Federal Trade Commission published on April 27, 2026. That figure has grown eightfold since 2020. Social media now generates more fraud losses than any other method scammers use to reach victims, surpassing phone calls, email, and text messages.
Nearly 30% of all people who reported losing money to a scam said the contact originated on a social media platform. And the losses reported on Facebook alone exceeded those from email and text scams combined.
Facebook Leads Every Platform
More people reported losing money to scams originating on Facebook than on any other social media platform. WhatsApp ranked second and Instagram third. The FTC did not publish exact dollar amounts per platform, but the data shows that Facebook generated substantially more fraud reports than any other social channel across all age groups, with the sole exception of people over 80, who were more frequently targeted by phone.
Meta responded to the report by noting it removed 159 million scam ads and disabled 10.9 million criminal accounts on Facebook and Instagram during 2025. Those numbers illustrate the scale of the problem: even aggressive moderation cannot keep pace with the volume of fraud flowing through the platform.
Where the Money Went
Investment scams were the most expensive category, accounting for $1.1 billion of the $2.1 billion total. These schemes typically advertised themselves as educational investment opportunities, used fake testimonials in WhatsApp groups, and featured scammers posing as financial advisers who guided victims into fraudulent trading platforms.
Shopping scams were the most commonly reported type. Over 40% of victims said they purchased items they first saw in a social media ad: clothing, cosmetics, car parts, and even puppies. Many of the ads linked to unfamiliar or counterfeit brand websites that either shipped nothing or delivered knockoffs.
Romance scams rounded out the top three. Nearly 60% of people who reported losing money to a romance scam in 2025 said it started on a social media platform. The playbook is well established: attackers build trust over weeks, manufacture a personal crisis, and then ask for money or redirect victims into fraudulent investment schemes.
How Social Media Enables Fraud at Scale
Social media platforms give scammers three advantages that other channels cannot match. First, the ability to target victims by demographics, interests, and behaviors through the same advertising tools that legitimate businesses use. A scammer can pay to show a fake investment ad specifically to people who follow finance accounts. Second, the appearance of social proof: fake reviews, manufactured engagement, and stolen photos make fraudulent accounts look legitimate. Third, the ability to scale. A single scammer operating multiple accounts can reach thousands of potential victims per day at near zero cost.
The FTC noted that scammers also hack existing accounts and use them to promote scams to the victim's real friends and followers. When a fraudulent link comes from someone you trust, the normal skepticism that protects you breaks down.
The Email Connection
Social media scams rarely stay on social media. Once a victim engages, scammers often move the conversation to email, messaging apps, or phone calls where there is less platform oversight. Investment scams frequently involve email confirmations from fake brokerage accounts. Shopping scams generate fake shipping notifications. Romance scams produce urgent emails requesting wire transfers.
This cross channel approach means that protecting yourself on social media alone is not enough. The same scammer who targets you through a Facebook ad may follow up with phishing emails designed to harvest your credentials or financial information. The FBI's 2025 cybercrime report documented $17.6 billion in total cyber fraud losses, with business email compromise as the second largest driver.
How to Protect Yourself
The FTC recommends several steps that reduce exposure:
- Limit who can contact you by restricting your profile visibility to people you actually know.
- Never invest based on a social media ad or group chat. Verify any investment opportunity through your own broker or a registered financial adviser.
- Search before you buy. Look up the company name along with "scam" or "complaint" before placing an order from an unfamiliar retailer.
- Be suspicious of urgency. Scammers manufacture time pressure to prevent you from thinking clearly or verifying their claims.
- Report scams to both the platform and the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
The eightfold increase since 2020 shows that platforms are losing the fight against social media fraud. Until that changes, the burden of defense falls on individual users.