The FTC published new data last week on social media scam losses in the United States. The headline number is $2.1 billion lost in 2025 - and the number that should give pause to anyone running ads or operating a business account on any major platform is this: nearly 30% of all reported scam losses last year started on social media.
That is not a rounding error. It is the largest share of any contact method, above phone calls, email, and text combined.
Where the Money Went
The FTC breaks down the $2.1 billion by scam type:
Investment scams - $1.1 billion. More than half of all social media scam losses came from investment fraud. The structure is familiar: an ad or post offering to teach you how to invest, a "friendly" adviser who appears in comments or DMs, or a WhatsApp group full of "successful investors" posting fake testimonials. The scam ends when the victim tries to withdraw money and discovers the platform is fake or access is blocked.
Shopping scams - most reported type. More than 40% of people who lost money to a social media scam said they ordered something they saw in a paid ad - clothes, makeup, car parts, electronics, even puppies. Many of these ads linked to websites impersonating real brands at steep discounts. The products either never arrived or were nothing like what was advertised.
Romance scams. Nearly 60% of people who reported losing money to a romance scam in 2025 said it started on a social media platform. Scammers often used profile information to personalize their approach before pivoting to a money request or a fake investment pitch.
Facebook Is the Biggest Problem by Far
The FTC data are specific on which platforms generate the most losses. People reported losing more money to scams that started on Facebook than on any other social media platform. WhatsApp and Instagram were second and third.
For context: people reported losing more money to Facebook-based scams than to phone, email, or text scams combined.
This is not a comment on Facebook's intent. It is a reflection of scale - more people, more ads, more targeting capability. Scammers use the same ad tools legitimate businesses use to find their victims.
What This Means If You Run a Business on Social Platforms
The FTC data create a real practical problem for small businesses that use social media to reach customers. Your potential customers are being trained by their own experience - and by articles like this one - to be suspicious of ads and offers they see on these platforms.
That distrust does not distinguish between your legitimate business and a scam operation running the same ad format.
A few things that reduce the friction:
Link to verifiable things. A Google Business Profile, a Better Business Bureau listing, your physical address, your phone number. Scam operations avoid paper trails. Having them makes you visibly different.
Avoid the high-pressure language scammers use. "Limited time," "guaranteed returns," "exclusive offer for followers" - these phrases are the surface markers of the scam pitches people have been burned by. Even if your offer is legitimate, that language raises alarm bells.
If you run investment-adjacent products or services - financial planning, tax prep, bookkeeping, insurance - be especially deliberate. This is where the FTC data shows the highest losses, and consumers in those categories are right to be cautious about social ads.
For customers who report receiving scam messages impersonating your business: The FTC has a reporting mechanism at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Encourage them to use it. Scammers impersonating real businesses is a documented pattern, and FTC reports help the agency track and act on it.
The 8x Number
The detail that most captures the scale of this shift: social media scam losses have grown eightfold since 2020. That is not organic growth. It is the direct result of social platforms becoming more powerful tools for targeting, combined with AI-assisted content generation that makes fake profiles and ads harder to detect on first glance.
This is a structural problem, not a consumer education problem. The FTC report is a data snapshot. What comes next is enforcement and, potentially, platform accountability.
Source: FTC Data Spotlight, April 2026