Report: Why scammers prowl social media for victims and how to stay safe

In reports made to the FTC, scammers typically connect with people directly as friends and encourage them to invest in cryptocurrency. They will then be duped in to sending money on the promise of huge returns but ended up with nothing. — Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Scammers on social media led more than 95,000 people to report approximately US$770mil (RM3.2bil) in losses in 2021, according to findings by the US-based Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

It stated that the largest number of reports made (45%) was due to scams related to online shopping, of which nearly 70% of victims said they did not receive their item after placing an order. They were typically driven to make the purchase after seeing an ad on social media, where some even found that the ads impersonated real online retailers that drove people to copycat websites.