Consumer Protection Data Spotlight | October 2020 1 

Scams starting on social media proliferate in early 2020

Social media can be a great way to connect with 

friends while the pandemic has you keeping your

distance. But reports to FTC’s Consumer Sentinel 

Network suggest that that social media websites and 

apps have become popular hangouts for scammers, 

too. Reports that people lost money to scams that 

started on social media1 more than tripled in the past 

year, with a sharp increase in the second quarter of 

2020. 

Reports about scams that started on social media have 

been increasing for years. In 2019, total reported 

losses to these frauds reached $134 million. But 

reported losses reached record highs, climbing to 

nearly $117 million in just the first six months of 

2020. In that time, the reported scams that started on 

social media often related to online shopping, romance

scams, and supposed economic relief or income 

opportunities. 

Reports about ecommerce sites that don’t deliver the 

goods top the FTC’s list.2 These reports skyrocketed 

with the pandemic, and nearly one in four reports to 

the FTC mentioned a social media hook.3 People 

mentioned Facebook or Instagram in 94% of reports 

that identified a specific platform,

4

 many saying they 

ordered after seeing an ad. These scam ads look real 

and can be carefully targeted to reach a particular 

audience. The scammers can delete comments on their 

ads or posts, so that negative responses don’t show up 

and alert people to the con. 

About half of all romance scam reports to the FTC

since 2019 involve social media, usually Facebook or 

Instagram.5 However, since the pandemic began, more 

people than ever have reported losing money to 

romance scams. That includes the scams that start with 

a social media message or friend request.6

 

People are increasingly reporting social media 

messages that offer grant money and other giveaways, 

supposedly to help people during the pandemic. These

scams offer so-called relief to people in need of cash, 

but scammers are really after your money, your
Consumer Protection Data Spotlight | October 2020 2

information, or both. These messages can even come 

from friends who may have been hacked, or who don’t 

know the offer is a scam, since scammers often tell 

people to send their message on to others.

As people seek more ways to earn money, reports 

about multi-level marketing (MLM) companies and 

pyramid schemes – including blessing circles and 

other gifting schemes – on social media have 

increased. The numbers were up a staggering fivefold 

in the second quarter of 2020.

7 Many of these 

recruitment offers reportedly came with extravagant 

claims about likely earnings, which is always a red 

flag. Some MLM companies are illegal pyramid 

schemes: they survive on recruiting new participants 

rather than selling products. Most people who join an 

MLM make little or no money with it, while people 

who become involved with a pyramid scheme 

typically lose everything they invest.

The many scams that show up on social media may 

benefit from scammers’ low-cost access to entire 

networks of people. The scammer can hide behind a 

phony profile, pretend to be someone you know, or 

even take over a real account. By hiding who they are, 

they can get into a virtual community you trust, 

leading you to be more likely to trust them. 

Here are some tips to help you steer clear of

scammers on social media:

• Before you buy based on an ad or post, check 

out the company. Type its name in a search 

engine with words like or “scam” or 

“complaint.” 

• Never send money to a love interest you have 

not met in person.

• If you get a message from a friend about a 

way to get some financial relief, call them. 

Did they forward it to you? If not, tell them 

their account may have been hacked. If so, 

check it out before you act.

• Before paying into an “opportunity” to earn 

money, check out ftc.gov/mlm.

• Don’t make it easy for scammers to target you 

– check your social media privacy settings to 

limit what you share publicly.

If you spot a scam, report it to the social media site 

and the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint. 

 1 This analysis includes fraud reports directly to the FTC where the method of contact was specifically identified as social network, and reports where the method of contact 

was not specified, specified as internet, or consumer initiated contact, if the comments field also included mention of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, 

Snapchat, TikTok, Tumblr, Twitter, or YouTube. The analysis excludes reports categorized as complaints about social networking services, internet information services, 

mobile text messages, and unsolicited email.

2 In Q1 2020 and Q2 2020, 28% of reports of frauds that started on social media were categorized as online shopping fraud where the goods were ordered but not 

received, followed by romance scams (13%), business imposter scams (6%), family and friend imposters (6%), and government imposter scams (4%).

3 In Q1 and Q2 2020, of the 43,391 reports directly to the FTC about undelivered online shopping orders, 9,832 (23%) indicated the problem started on social media.

4 Of the 9,832 reports (in Endnote 3) about online shopping orders that never arrived, 7,974 reports identified one or more of the social media platforms listed in Endnote 

1, including 7,502 that identified Facebook or Instagram. 

5 From January 2019 through June 2020, 10,491 (48%) of the 21,941 romance scam reports directly to the FTC were scams that started on social media. Of these, 5,845

identified one or more of the social media platforms listed in Endnote 1, including 5,147 that identified Facebook or Instagram.

6 In Q2 2020, 2,621 people reported a monetary loss on a romance scam directly to the FTC, a 19% increase over the previous quarterly high of 2,208 in Q1 of 2020.

7 These figures are based on reports directly to the FTC categorized as multi-level marketing\pyramids\chain letters. In 2020, reports in this category increased from 387 

total reports in the first quarter to 824 total reports in the second quarter. Of those that started on social media, the increase was 94 in Q1, compared to 491 in Q2.