Too good to be true? Social media scams are on the rise

If you scroll Instagram, chances are you see a lot of tempting ads. For Miriam Nunberg, an education lawyer in New York City, the one she fell for showed a skirt with colorful birds for less than $30.

“It looked really pretty in the ad, and I don’t normally buy things online,” she said, while her son shouted: “That’s not true at all!”

When the skirt arrived, she realized it was totally different than it looked in the ad.

“The fabric is this stiff, thick polyester that doesn’t feel good, and it’s very clammy when you wear it,” Nunberg said. The prints of the birds were blurry, and the packaging was in a different language.

“I have no idea how to return this, because I can’t even read the return address,” she said.

So, she couldn't get her money back.

Consumers lost more than $1 billion to fraud on social media in the first six months of this year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. That’s almost ten times what it was five years ago.

Consumers have little protection from these Insta-scams, said Rachel Tobac, the CEO of SocialProof Security, a cybersecurity company. “All social media companies have a long way to go in responding to scammy behavior.”

Meta didn’t respond to Marketplace's request for an interview.

Tobac said you would think social media companies would act quickly against scammy ads. “Because it makes their platform seem scammy as a whole,” she said.

Melanie McGovern, a spokesperson for the Better Business Bureau, said when a retailer is based overseas, there is little the Bureau can do.

“We're not able to secure a refund or anything because we only operate in North America,” she said.

The FTC works with agencies all over the world and it advises consumers to report scams at econsumer.gov. But it’s unclear if reports lead to any action.

McGovern explained that before buying, consumers can check the BBB scam tracker and, more generally, watch for red flags on ads.

“Is it really inexpensive? Are they guaranteeing sizes? Are they guaranteeing shipping?” she said.

If that stylish, linen dress for $50 looks too good to be true, Google it.

“You do that image search, and you see it pop up on a bunch of different websites. It's maddening,” McGovern said.

Maybe a small consolation: Since August, online retailers have to pay tariffs to ship parcels worth less than $800 from abroad. So at least it will cost the scammers more to scam you.