The volume of scams that crop up on Facebook is as massive as the platform itself. Cybercriminals often use social engineering tactics to gain users’ trust, making it essential to be vigilant and informed about potential threats. Let’s break it down and learn how you can protect yourself from the various types of Facebook deceit. Understanding how these scams work and knowing how to spot them can help protect your privacy, online identity, and financial security while using Facebook.

Types of scams on Facebook

Facebook scams come in various forms, including phishing messages, fake giveaways, impersonation profiles, and fraudulent ads. Even as they take on many different forms, scams on Facebook share several telltale signs that you can spot.

Bogus benefits and get-rich-quick schemes

The list here is long. These include posts and direct messages about phony relief funds, grants, and giveaways, along with bogus business opportunities such as pyramid schemes, gifting circles, and mystery shopper jobs. Commonly, they’re run by scammers who want your personal information, money, or both. Many of these scams made the jump from email to social media platforms.

How to avoid them

Research any offer, business opportunity, or organization that reaches out to you. A good way to verify is to do a search of the organization’s name plus the term “scam”, “review” or “complaint” to see if anything sketchy comes up.

Government imposter Facebook scams

One government official that scammers like to use to put fear in you is the tax collector. Scammers will use social and other media messaging to pose as an official that’s either demanding back taxes or offering a refund or credit, all of which involve you handing over your personal info, money, or both.

How to avoid them

Delete the message. In the U.S., the IRS and other government agencies will never reach out to you through Facebook or ask you for your personal information. Likewise, they won’t demand payment via wire transfer, gift cards, or cryptocurrency like bitcoin. Only scammers will.

Friends and family imposter Facebook scams

These single people out and often rely on specific info about you and your family collected from social media and use it against you. In all, they rely on a phony story that involves someone close to you in urgent need or trouble. One example is the “grandkid scam” where a hacker impersonates a grandchild and asks a grandparent for money. In family emergency scams, a bad actor sends a message that a family member was in an accident or arrested and needs money quickly.

How to avoid them

Take a deep breath and confirm the situation. Don’t respond to the message. Reach out to the person directly another way, such as with a call or text. You can also get in touch with another friend or family member to see if there really is a concern. Don’t jump to pay right away.

The Facebook romance con

Found everywhere from social media sites to dating apps to online forums, this scam involves creating a phony profile and a phony story to go with it. From there, the scammer will communicate several times a day, perhaps talking about their exotic job in some exotic location. They’ll build trust and feelings along the way and eventually ask the victim to wire money or purchase gift cards.

How to avoid them

Bottom line, if someone you’ve never met in person asks you for money online, it’s a good bet that it’s a scam. Don’t do it. Let a close friend or family member know what’s happening and lean on their support when you stop talking with the scammer.

Facebook shopping scams

With millions of detailed user profiles in their data stores, Facebook gives legitimate businesses a targeted ad platform to reach people based on age groups, hobbies and interests, past purchases, and so on. Just as easily, a scammer can use the same tools to cook up bogus ads for their bogus products, services, and websites where a payment system steals financial info from the unknowing buyer.

How to avoid them

When you’re shopping online, do some quick research on the company’s history. Have any complaints been recorded by your attorney general or local consumer protection agency? Also, a quick search for “[company name] scam” can help. You might come across posts and reports about a scam related to that company.

Investment and “special offer” scams (now with deepfake technology)

A business mogul touting a “hot” cryptocurrency investment opportunity. Taylor Swift announcing a “free” cookware giveaway. These are two high-profile deepfake scams that have hit Facebook feeds. Like the ads, they pave the way for financial fraud. People hand over their payment, never to see their money again. Worse, the scammer has their credit or debit card info to be used for more fraud .

How to avoid them

With skepticism, for one. Would Taylor Swift really promote free cookware? Look for the signs of a deepfake video, like audio and video that don’t sync, odd lighting, and strange skin tones. As deepfake technology improves, it’s getting increasingly tougher to spot them with your eye. That’s where your skepticism and technology like our McAfee Deepfake Detector can steer you clear of scams like these.

Protecting yourself from scams on Facebook

Use strict privacy settings

Set your social media profile to private to limit your personal info in public. Security software with features like our Social Privacy Manager can easily do this on Facebook and your other social media accounts. Consider anything you do or post on social media as public info, although small scale. Your Facebook connections can pass it along to their connections, and so forth, so pare back the posting and info you share on social media. The less you put out there, the less a scammer can use against you.

Be a skeptic

This applies to staying safe online in general. As scams rely on our love of telling stories and helping others, that openness could lower your guard when a scammer comes calling. When they do, try to read their messages beyond face value. Does something seem unusual about the language or request? What could be the motivation behind it? Pausing and considering questions like these could steer you clear of a scam.

Know your true friends

How well do you know everyone on your list of friends and followers? Your privacy settings may be adjusted to the max, but if you accept a shady person into your Facebook circle, you still expose yourself to scams. Being selective about who you invite into your private circle can limit scammers’ access to your personal info, posts, tweets, and updates. If you want to keep growing your list of friends and followers, be aware that any personal info you share is effectively being broadcast on a small scale — potentially to people you don’t really know well at all.

Look out for each other

This means letting friends know about that strange message you received or a friend request from a potentially duplicate account. By speaking up, you may be giving them the first sign that their account, and thus a portion of their identity, has been compromised.

Use a scam detector

There are several straightforward steps that you can take to spot deepfakes. We recommend a combination of healthy skepticism and awareness combined with the right technology, such as McAfee Deepfake Detector.

Report scams on Facebook

If you spot a sketchy post, you can always tap or click the “x” on the post to report it. Flagging suspicious posts this way can alert Facebook to investigate and shut them down more quickly.

Also, strongly consider filing a police report if you believe you’ve been a victim of a Facebook scam. While some of the scammers behind these crimes are small-time operators, there are larger, almost business-like operations that conduct these crimes on a broader and sometimes international scale. Whether filing a report will help you recover some or all your losses, it can provide information to businesses and agencies that could keep the scam from happening to others.