Most people in the world are on some sort of social media platform. It’s a way of connecting to people, sharing your thoughts/creations, growing a brand, etc. However, social media can also be used for scamming people en masse. According to the FTC, social media accounted for 25% of reported losses due to scammers.
25% of the money lost to scammers was via social media
Scammers have always been a reality since LONG before the first social sites; however, social media really helped them along. Throughout the year, people report when they get scammed to the FTC and they report how much money they lose. As per the report, of the people who reported scams last year, more than 95,000 of them were scammed on social media.
The amount of money that was stolen via social media is staggering. More than $770 million were stolen last year just from social media. This figure is much larger than in previous years. Back in 2020, the figure was $258 million. That’s an almost 300% increase YoY, and that’s the biggest jump. Since 2017, the number of people scammed through social media increased 18-fold.
A big chunk of this involves cryptocurrency
This should come as no surprise. Cryptocurrency is still a virtual “Wild West” of the internet. There are so many different shady characters shilling bogus coins to the masses, and they all lead to the same result. There was no shortage of cryptocurrency scandals last year.
The way people typically do these scams is by promoting a new coin so that people can put money into it. As more people put money into the coin, it inflates in value. When the coin gets to a certain point, the people shilling the coin then cash out and pocket the money themselves. Out of the $770 million stolen, more than $284 million was stolen through crypto scams.
There were other scams last year
This type of scam sounds a bit silly when you year it, but over $184 million were stolen last year. Basically, the scammer would start a relationship with an individual, fool them into falling for them, and then ask for money. Suffice to say, once the transaction is finished, the relationship is over.
About $107 million were stolen in online shopping scams. While online shopping scams are in 3rd place in terms of money, it’s first in terms of the number of actual reports. 45% of the people who reported being scammed were scammed while shopping via social media. Basically, people will pay money for a product but never actually get it.
2022-02-01 15:06:07