New FTC Data Show People Have Lost Billions to Social Media Scams

New data from the Federal Trade Commission show that, in 2025, nearly 30% of people who reported losing money to a scam said that it started on social media, with reported losses reaching a staggering $2.1 billion. Social media scams produced far more in losses—an eightfold increase since 2020—than any other contact method used by scammers to reach consumers, according to the new data. The Data Spotlight notes that social media creates easy access to billions of people from anywhere in the world, making a scammer’s job easier at very little cost. 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. Reports show that in 2025, people reported losing more money to scams that started on Facebook than on any other social media platform. WhatsApp and Instagram were a distant second and third. In 2025, people reported losing far more money to scams on Facebook alone than they reported losing to text or email scams. The data also show that all age groups, with the exception of those 80 and
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