Americans Lost Over $2 Billion to Social Media Scams in 2025, Up 160% Since 2021

Social media has become the costliest place to get scammed in America. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Americans lost $2.05 billion to social media fraud last year, an increase of 160% from 2021, when they lost $789 million.

The number of victims and the amount of money lost to scams initiated on popular digital platforms have climbed in each of the last four years, with no signs of stopping. To map the trend, the All About Cookies research team analyzed the last five years of FTC fraud data to illustrate the rising scope of social media fraud in America.

Key findings

• Social media fraud losses reached $2.05 billion in 2025, an increase of 160% since 2021 ($789 million).
• Fraud reports rose 24% over the same period, from 159,371 to 197,776.
• 72% of reports now involve a financial loss, up from 64% in 2021.
• The median loss fell 25% to $300, meaning more people are losing smaller amounts.

Social media fraud losses have exploded since 2021

Social media fraud has become a billion-dollar problem in the United States, with criminals taking $2.05 billion from victims in 2025. That total represents an increase of more than 10% from 2024 ($1.86 billion lost) and is more than double the amount scammers stole via social media in 2021 ($789 million).

The 10.5% increase from 2024 to 2025 actually reflects a slower period of growth in social media fraud losses. In every other year from 2021 to 2025, the amount of money victims lost to social media fraud increased by at least 21%. The largest year-over-year increase came between 2021 and 2022, when the amount of money stolen on social media by scammers rose by $437 million (from $789 million to $1.2 billion), a 55% jump.

Over the full period, social media scams accounted for between 9% and 12% of all fraud reports annually, trailing behind calls, texts, phishing attempts, and fraudulent websites.

In that same timeframe, social media has been responsible for the largest total dollar losses every year since 2021, outpacing other common methods of contact scammers use, such as phone calls, smishing scams, and email.

The combination of a modest share of reports but the largest share of dollars lost points to scams with high potential for major losses, such as investment cons and romance fraud. These kinds of scams often start with a simple message or an online ad, but can end with costly outcomes such as identity theft or a drained bank account.

Social Media Fraud Losses, 2021-2025

Year	Reports	Total reported losses	% of reports with a loss	Median loss
2021	159,371	$789 million	64%	$400
2022	162,648	$1.23 billion	61%	$527
2023	181,396	$1.49 billion	68%	$343
2024	186,891	$1.86 billion	70%	$409
2025	197,776	$2.05 billion	72%	$300

More victims, smaller losses

The total dollars lost are soaring, but the typical victim is actually losing less.

The median loss fell from $400 in 2021 to $300 in 2025, a 25% drop, even as the total number of reports has risen every single year since 2021. That mix tells the real story: social media fraud is becoming a high-volume game.

Scammers are reaching more people and converting more of them into paying victims, but for smaller amounts each. Cheap, automated outreach such as fake ads, counterfeit marketplace listings, and impersonation accounts (sometimes using stolen personal data) let fraudsters cast an enormous net, so the money adds up even when individual hauls shrink. It's a different threat profile from a single data breach, where a single event exposes millions at once.

What’s driving the rise in social media fraud?

Several forces are driving the surge:

• Massive reach and cheap, automated targeting let scammers contact huge numbers of people at almost no cost.
• Fake ads, fraudulent listings, and impersonation accounts blend in with legitimate content. These kinds of scams can be particularly effective on well-known platforms such as Facebook Marketplace.
• Payment methods popular on social platforms, such as gift cards, payment apps, and crypto, are fast and hard to reverse.
• More commerce and financial activity is happening directly inside social apps.

For most people, the danger isn't an obvious scam email anymore, but instead a friendly message, a too-good-to-be-true deal, or an ad that looks just like the real thing. Because so much shopping, investing, and socializing now happens inside a handful of apps, the line between a normal interaction and a fraud attempt has blurred.

How to protect yourself from social media scams

Using strong, unique credentials with a password manager and turning on two-factor authentication won't stop every scam, but can limit the damage when an account is compromised. Here are some more ways you can stay safe:

• Use identity theft protection: With losses topping $2 billion a year, the best identity theft protection services monitor your accounts and personal data so you can catch fraud before it spreads.
• Lock down your accounts with a password manager: Using a top password manager helps create strong, unique passwords for every login, so one compromised account doesn't open the rest.
• Get your personal data offline: Much social media fraud starts with exposed personal info, and using one of the best data removal services to get your details taken off the internet gives scammers less to work with.

Methodology

All About Cookies analyzed annual social media fraud and dollar loss reports from 2021 through 2025, sourced from the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel data. “Total reported losses” reflects the dollar amounts victims reported; median loss reflects the typical reported loss among reports that included a financial loss. Figures are rounded.