' How To Avoid Scholarship and Financial Aid Scams.'įederal Student Aid. “ Social Media and Teens.”įederal Trade Commission. ' Fake Prize, Sweepstakes, and Lottery Scams.'Īmerican Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. ' State of Internet Scams 2021.'įederal Trade Commission. ' Scams in Online Sales: When Orders Don’t Arrive.' ' Online Teen Safety Guide.'įederal Trade Commission, Consumer Information. ' The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens,'. Teenagers, after all, are social animals, and recent pandemic lockdowns have helped create a perfect storm of teen anxiety and scammer opportunities that continue to play out on most of the major social media platforms.įederal Bureau of Investigation. Social media is prime territory for Internet-based scams that target teens. Yet another trick is to lure teens with free services for smartphones that actually incur a monthly charge.Other scams involve contests, scholarships, or employment opportunities requiring the teen to pay a fee or deposit.Many scams take the form of ads and online offers, promising luxury goods for amazingly cheap prices-goods that never arrive.Fraudsters use social media to trick teens into providing personal information, which can be used for identity theft.Scams that target teenagers abound, especially in their favorite habitat-the Internet.The onset of COVID-19 and the resulting isolation were especially hard on young people, leading to increased scams targeting teens.

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