Social media scam

Social media's combination of high trust, personal information, and huge reach makes it fertile ground for fraud. Scam types endemic to social media include: fake celebrity giveaways ('double your Bitcoin'); fraudulent investment adverts featuring doctored endorsement videos; impersonation accounts mimicking friends, brands, or public figures to request money or clicks; romance and catfishing operations; fake marketplace listings; and malware distributed through links in messages or posts.

Many platform-level scams exploit compromised accounts — a fraudster who takes over your friend's account can send convincing requests to your entire network. Account-security hygiene (strong unique passwords, 2FA) protects both you and your contacts.

Reporting scam accounts, adverts, and posts to platforms is important: most platforms have escalation processes for fraud and will remove confirmed scam content.