Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Helping Older Adults Avoid Online Scams

According to the FBI's 2024 Internet Crime Report , people aged 60 and over in the US lost a combined $4.8 billion to fraud in 2024 alone. Criminals use a variety of tactics to gain trust and in certain circumstances compromise people's online accounts, often with the goal of targeting their close contacts for scams.

This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, as part of our ongoing global anti-scam awareness campaign, we're sharing the latest trends in scams targeting older adults, new safety tools, and tips for how to spot and avoid scammers online.

Scams to Watch out for

In addition to our ongoing investigations, we partnered with open source researchers at Graphika to find and disrupt scams targeting older adults across the Internet. Where these scams showed up on our apps, we took action: blocking scammers' websites on our platforms and taking down their accounts.

• Fake home remodeling services and debt relief: Scammers created websites designed to solicit personal information under the pretense of providing fictitious government benefits for senior citizens, including debt relief and low- or no-cost home renovations. They attempted to drive people to these websites using online ads, including on Facebook and Google.

• Fraudulent money recovery services: Scammers created websites impersonating the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center's (IC3) official site under the pretense of helping people recover funds, including from crypto scams. They also ran inauthentic accounts across many services, including Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and X, posing as officials who can help fraud victims recover their money.

• Fake customer service support: Scammers created online accounts and Facebook Pages posing as customer service representatives for airlines, travel agencies, banks, and others. They responded to comments under the official brands' posts in an attempt to redirect people to DMs or Google Forms under the pretense of processing the refund.

Tips for Older Adults: Staying Safe From Common Scams

• Be cautious with unsolicited messages or calls. Never share personal or financial information like your Social Security number or account numbers in response to unexpected calls, emails, or texts. Legitimate companies and government agencies won't ask for this information out of the blue.
• Pause and check in with people you trust. Scammers often create a false sense of urgency or panic. If someone pressures you to act quickly or keep things secret, that's a red flag. Take a moment, and talk to someone you trust before responding.
• Use official customer service channels. If you need help, always call the company's official hotline or go to their website to find their contact info. Don't click on links in emails or texts, and avoid posting complaints on public forums - scammers look for these opportunities.

Tips for Families to Help Older Adults in Their Lives Stay Safe Online

The AARP's Fraud Watch Network provides resources and regularly hosts online events to help older adults spot and avoid common scams. They can report scams to local police, the FTC, or the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center .

Taking Action Against Scammers

Cross-border criminal networks continue to operate at scale globally and use sophisticated schemes to target people - including older adults - across many industries through messaging, dating apps, social media, crypto, and other apps. We continue to look for and block attempts by criminal syndicate-run scam centers to create accounts on our platforms. In the first half of 2025, our expert teams have detected and disrupted about 8 million accounts associated with scam centers across Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Philippines. In addition, we took action on over 21,000 Pages and accounts pretending to be customer support in an attempt to trick people into sharing their information.

Working With Others to Protect People From Scams

Scammers constantly evolve their tactics to evade detection and rarely, if ever, target one single platform. This makes collaboration with law enforcement and within industries critical in our anti-scam efforts.

Meta is joining the National Elder Fraud Coordination Center (NEFCC), a nonprofit that brings together law enforcement, and companies like AARP, Amazon, Capital One, Google, Microsoft, and Walmart to combat fraud targeting older adults. We will be working alongside NEFCC members to combat fraud at the local, state, and national levels, focused on protecting older adults by sharing resources and supporting investigations into large-scale fraud operations.

As part of the Tech Against Scams Coalition (TASC), we recently worked with Match Group to disrupt Facebook Groups that claimed to be selling dating accounts to be used for scams. The scammers disguised Facebook Groups as being for "dating support services."

Earlier this month, we co-hosted the " Cyber Smart Senior " training in Bangkok, to help equip over 100 Thai seniors and health center staff from 69 public health centers with vital online safety and digital literacy skills, including spotting and avoiding scams. This was held in partnership with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and Public Health Department, the Electronic Transactions Development Agency, the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau of the Royal Thai Police, the National Police Television Station, and Kenan Foundation Asia.

Raising Awareness on Online Safety Around the World

We're running timely safety education efforts around the globe with our partners on an ongoing basis. Here are a few recent examples:

In Europe, we partnered with a number of creators to raise awareness among older adults on how to spot and protect themselves from scams, including Amanda Lamb and mum_and_a_mic in the UK, oliva_sinhache in Spain, and Mądra Babcia and the SGH Warsaw School of Economics in Poland.

In India, we partnered with Signboard_wala (a.k.a. guy with a signboard) and multiple comedy creators to drive scam awareness in public spaces using culturally relevant and visually impactful storytelling to highlight Meta's safety features like Two-Factor Authentication and Block and Report, and to share important digital safety lessons.

As part of our continuous efforts to protect people from scammers, we'll keep sharing regular updates about our work to counter scams more broadly, including safety tips and product updates across our apps.

Our Latest Anti-Scam Tools

On WhatsApp, we're launching warnings when you attempt to share your screen with an unknown contact during a video call. We know scammers may pressure their targets to share their screen to trick people into giving away sensitive information including bank details or verification codes. With this new tool we give our users more context to spot and avoid scams.

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On Messenger , we're testing more advanced scam detection in chats. When this is enabled and a new contact sends a potentially scammy message, we warn you and give you an option to send recent chat messages for AI scam review. If a potential scam is detected, you will get more information on common scams, and we will suggest actions including blocking or reporting the suspicious account. Learn more here.

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On Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp, you can set up Passkeys to make it safer to sign in with the same fingerprint, face, or PIN you already use on your mobile device to verify your identity.

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On Facebook and Instagram , you can use Security Checkup to review your security settings and get recommendations on security actions like updating your password. On WhatsApp , Privacy Checkup guides you through important privacy settings - like deciding who can add you to groups - to help you choose the right level of protection, all in one place.

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