Social media scams

Scammers can use social media to steal your details, promote fake products and services or contact you to trick you into sending them money. Follow our top tips to stay safe.

1. Keep your info private: don’t share details like your address, birthday, or pets name publicly, with strangers, or in online quizzes and games. These are common security question answers and scammers could get this information to target you. Set your account settings to private to control who can see your posts.
2. Check their profile: scammers can create fake accounts to pose as genuine people, celebrities, or organisations. Decline friend requests from strangers and be wary that scammers can hack your friends and family accounts.  If it’s a company or celebrity, check their profile has a verified badge and followers.
3. Use strong passwords: make unique passwords for your accounts and change them often. A mix of letters, numbers and special characters make passwords harder to guess. Visit our password security guide for more info.
4. Look out for ads and online auctions: if it looks too good to be true, it’s likely a scam. Don’t click on the links, instead look for the offer on the organisation’s trusted website. Ask to see expensive items from marketplaces in-person before buying.
5. Beware of artificial intelligence (AI) scams: scammers use AI to make their scams more convincing. They can make fake images, voice recordings, videos, and text. This means you should be extra careful when viewing or sharing content online.