95,000 Americans Lost $770 Million To Social Media Scams

Share post:

More than 95,000 U.S. consumers lost about $770 million to social media scams, according to the FTC.

The report is based on tens of thousands of reports received by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2021. Fraud on social media accounts for a quarter of all fraud losses reported in 2021.

“More than one in four people who reported losing money to fraud in 2021 said it started on social media with an ad, a post, or a message. In fact, the data suggest that social media was far more profitable to scammers in 2021 than any other method of reaching people,” the FTC said.

Some of the most profitable scams on social media include those promoting bogus investments and romance scams.

According to reports, one of the largest numbers of scams associated with social media is online shopping scams.

The FTC offered tips on how to avoid scams on social media, including limiting those who can see their posts and information on social media, checking whether they can opt-out of targeted counselling, and checking messages from friends who are asking for money.

Others involve reading information about romance scams to avoid falling victims and checking information about a buyer before buying their products.

For more information, read the original story in BleepingComputer.

Featured Tech Jobs

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Related articles

Cyber Security Today, March 27, 2024 – A botnet exploits old routers, a new malware loader discovered, and more warnings about downloading code from...

This episode reports on a new network of 40,000 infected small and home office routers and other devices that are part of a criminal botnet

Cyber Security Today, March 25, 2024 – A suspected China threat actor going after unpatched F5 and ScreenConnet installations

This episode reports on a new campaign stealing email passwords ,the latest data breaches

A hacker’s view of the civic infrastructure: Hashtag Trending, the Weekend Edition for March 23rd, 2024

What does the civic infrastructure look like through the eyes of a hacker? The legendary general Sun Tzu in the Art of War said that in order to defeat your enemy, you must first understand your enemy. How do you do this? He said, “to know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” If we

Cyber Security Today, Week in Review for week ending Friday, March 22, 2024

This episode features discussion on lessons learned from the ransomware attack on the British Library, advice for managing expectations of IT/security teams, why firms are leaving Google Firebase unprotecte

Become a member

New, Relevant Tech Stories. Our article selection is done by industry professionals. Our writers summarize them to give you the key takeaways