Social media scams and safety

Estimated reading time
 6 min

Key points

• Social media is a convenient platform that allows us to connect with our nearest and dearest, but it’s also a gold mine for scammers.
  
  
• Knowing how to spot the red flags of a social media scam can help you protect yourself and your loved ones from having their personal information or money stolen.
  
  
• Setting your profiles to private, not sharing your personal information and verifying someone’s profile are just some of the safety measures you can take to avoid the risks of social media.

Social media has rapidly changed how we engage with the world and our loved ones. 

Gone are the days where you had to look up a number in a thick phone book to connect with someone – now, just send them a message through any social media platform. And instead of catching up over tea and biscuits once in a blue moon to share important life moments, a simple scroll through someone’s social media account can give you that life update in seconds.

For some older Australians, it can feel hard to keep up with the evolving nature of social media and the internet.¹ And when you throw in the potential dangers of social media, navigating this wild online jungle can feel daunting.

With a reported loss of $80.2 million to social media scams in 2023,² it’s more important than ever to learn how to stay safe on social media to help protect yourself and your loved ones. 

Why is social media safety important?

Social media platforms are popular as they help you stay in touch with your family and friends, even when they’re in a different state or country.

But they’re also some of the most popular platforms for scammers to lurk on

“Facebook and WhatsApp are the two biggest platforms that we see for scams,” says Chantara Lowe, ANZ Scam Assist Senior Officer in Customer Protection. “Instagram is also a big contributor to scams too.”

This makes social media a haven for them – not only using the platforms to target people, but to also collect data.

“Scammers on social media are really stepping up their game,” says Chantara Lowe, ANZ Scam Assist Senior Officer in Customer Protection. “They use these platforms to mine data so that they can target specific people with their scams. For example, if you share on social media that you’ve just retired, then a scammer might try to target you with an investment scam.”

This is why setting your social media profiles to private is so important. The last thing you want to do when celebrating a new addition to the family or sharing your holiday photos is to become a new target or to have your photos and information be used without your consent.

“Be very careful with what you share on social media,” Chantara says. “It’s important that you put all your social media profiles on private. Even something like your full date of birth in your profile is enough information that scammers can use for things like identity fraud, phishing scams, or other types of scams.”

What are social media scams?

Social media scams are when someone uses social media to try and manipulate you into giving them money or handing over personal information that you wouldn’t normally share.  

Here’s a quick run-down of some of the most common social media scams:

Fake profile social media scams

• “Scammers will steal people’s photos and information to make fake profiles of your family and friends,” Chantara says. “These fake profiles might try adding you and mutual friends to make the profile look real and to trick people into thinking it’s just a new profile. Or they might send you a message pretending to be that person.” The scammer will exploit the existing relationship to ask for money or personal information, often for other scams.
  
  
• The scammer might create a fake profile of a celebrity or influencer to exploit their status and to build a rapport with the goal to sell you a product or donate to a charity. They will use photos that are publicly available to create this fake profile and make it look legitimate. However, their goal is to deceive you into sharing personal information or giving them money.
  
  
• A fake charity profile reaches out and asks for your support during a crisis. They might use photos sourced from other corners of the internet, make their own, or even use AI-generated images. The fake account might get you to share their posts on your own profile for a donation, or they might simply ask for a donation. The giveaway is that they only have a couple of followers and started their account recently. Scammers do this to either steal your money or have a quick way to access your photos – because you reposted or tagged the account in your content, they can quickly find your photos and use it elsewhere.
  
  
• If you receive a private message congratulating you on winning a giveaway, but you never entered a competition, then it might be an unexpected money scam. In the message, the scammer might say that to collect your winnings you have to click on the link, enter your banking details and the prize is all yours. These links will take you to an unsafe website for you to enter your personal information, while unknowingly installing malware (malicious software). 

Online Marketplace scams

• Someone might post fake listings of an item they don’t actually have to scam you out of your money. The scammer might use photos of the item they’re claiming to sell from previous listings or the original website where the item was listed.
  
  
• Someone purchases your listed item and overpays you. The scammer explains the extra money was sent by mistake and asks for a refund of the overpaid amount. In reality, the scammer may have used a fake credit card or bank account to ‘overpay’ you. This means that no actual funds were transferred to your account.  If you pay the scammer the overpaid difference, you’re giving them your money.

Professional networking or fake employment scams

• If you receive an unexpected job offer that’s too good to be true, then it might be a job scam. If you accept the job, then the scammer might ask you to pay an onboarding fee or they might ask you to purchase your own equipment and send it to their IT department.
  
  
• A reputable business might contact you on LinkedIn, even though they’re in a different industry. Their profile might have a slightly mismatched email or website domain, and there’s not a lot of contact information available, so chances are it might be an impersonation scam. The scammer’s goal on professional sites is usually to trick you into sharing personal identifying information or to get you to click on a malware link that can then infect your computer and steal your data. 

8 tips to stay safer on social media

Social media helps us stay connected with those around us in a safe, secure, and convenient way. Here’s how you can help stay safe while using any social media platform:

1. Don’t give out any personal information. This includes what you decide to add to your profile, such as your name, location, date of birth or phone number. If you need to use personal information when you sign up for accounts or services through social media, then make sure you can hide the information from public view afterwards.
   
   
2. Get to know your privacy settings and apply the appropriate options. For example, you can set your Instagram profile to private and always screen the follower requests that come through. Remember, if you decide to go public on Instagram, then anyone can follow you.
   
   
3. Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) for your social media accounts – either a one-time passcode (a unique code that is sent to you via text) or through an authenticator app. This will help prevent scammers from getting into your profiles.
   
   
4. If someone contacts you out of the blue, verify their identity before you do anything (especially if it’s a ‘celebrity’ or ‘influencer’). A lack of posting history, profile details or followers can be a red flag. You can also reverse search an image on their account to see if it pops up on other fake social media profiles – this is when you look up an image via your search engine (like Google). You can either take a screenshot of the image or save it to your desktop, then upload it to the search engine and see what comes up.
   
   
5. Create a strong, unique password for each of your social media accounts and change them frequently. Or consider using passphrases instead, which is when you combine three or four random words to create one strong password.
   
   
6. Use a family code word to help you identify and verify that the person who’s contacting you is actually your family member. This is a smart tip to follow especially with some scammers impersonating family members on messaging apps, such as WhatsApp.
   
   
7. Never send money to a person you’ve only met online.
   
   
8. Never send personal pictures or videos of yourself to someone you have only met online.

What can you do if you think you’ve been scammed on social media? 

While scammers have many tactics up their sleeves to trick you, here’s how you can minimise the risk and impact:

• If you’ve shared financial information or transferred money, contact your bank immediately. If you’re an ANZ customer, contact us immediately to report the fraud.
  
  
• If you’ve shared credit card details, ‘block’ or cancel those cards immediately. If your cards are with ANZ, you can report the stolen card through the ANZ app or by calling us.
  
  
• Report the account to the social media platform where the scam happened.

Who can you contact if you’ve been scammed?

• Report the scam to Scamwatch or to the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre’s ReportCyber.
  
  
• For phishing or identity theft associated with government accounts such as Centrelink, Medicare, or Child Support, contact the Services Australia scams and identity helpdesk on 1800 941 126 or visit their website.
  
  
• You can also contact IDCare, a not-for-profit organisation providing support to those experiencing identity and cyber security concerns.
  
  
• Contact your bank immediately if you shared personal or financial information.
  
  
• If you’re an ANZ customer, you can report fraud or suspicious activity in multiple ways, such as through the ANZ app or by calling us