Social networks remain very attractive to web scammers. They are even more and more so, according to the FTC, the American competition authority.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Trade Commission, the American counterpart of the Competition Authority, published its report this week on the impact of scams on social networks in 2021. And the independent agency wants to alert public opinion, by specifically targeting two platforms well known to the general public, in this case Facebook and Instagram.
The growing weight of fraud on social networks
According to the FTC, more than one in four people say they lost money in 2021 because of a fraud that first started on social networks, whether using an advertisement , a private message or a traditional publication.
The report argues that social media has been more profitable for cybercriminals than any other method of reaching Internet and mobile users. It is no longer uncommon to be scammed on certain platforms, as one can now be in a classic way by e-mail, with the very democratized phishing, which also always does great damage to consumers.
In 2021, more than 95,000 people reported to the FTC that they had lost money due to social media fraud. These losses would amount to $770 million, which represents about a quarter (25%) of all reported losses due to fraud in the same year. Since 2017, social media fraud losses have increased 18 times.
Facebook and Instagram, the bad students
The scammers who are rampant on social networks have plenty to do. They can reach billions of people all over the world, without generating any particular expenses. The techniques are multiple: creation and “rise in popularity” of a real-fake account, hacking a real account to defraud the friends of the account, etc. The FTC also warns that cybercriminals have access, like everyone else, to tools dedicated to advertisers, which help to better target potential victims, for only a few dollars and using false advertisements, by determining criteria specific properties (age, geographical location, interests and others).
Social networks facilitate investment scams, especially in cryptocurrency, make big upfront promises. Moreover, this type of scam comes back to a majority of people who have reported losing money on social networks in 2021. The love scam is a very widespread and profitable fraud as well. The FTC is talking here about record amounts in recent years, and as such, it is clearly targeting Facebook and Instagram, moreover the only two social media mentioned in the report. The authority thus denounces those who are called “grazers”, these accounts which try to seduce their victims and end up asking them for money. A technique as old as the world, one might say, which still traps many users.
Finally, the FTC notes that the largest number of reports received in 2021 relate to the purchase scam. Here, we have the classic case of the Internet user who sees an advertisement on a social network, an advertisement which makes him dream and sends him to a site, to place an order. Except that the Internet user does not receive his product. This technique, which plays on the emotional and incentive aspect through the price, is sometimes relayed by influencers, who thus engage in what is called dropshipping, practice in the sights of Bercy for several months. Once again, 9 out of 10 Internet users who made a report cited Facebook or Instagram.
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Source: FTC
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