And while searches have begun to fall since, levels remain far above what they were at the start of 2020. Unfortunately this suggests a lot of people are still getting tricked, and potentially losing huge sums of money in the process.

According to Google Trends, the big related topics and keywords for these searches are around various payment platforms. This is no surprise as these platforms make sending money incredibly easy, and allow scammers to pretend to be whoever they want.

There have also been a lot of searches around scams and online marketplaces, with scammers taking payments for products they don’t actually have. With lockdowns making us more reliant on online shopping, it seems plenty of scammers saw this as an opportunity.

For example, in the UK, one scam was based around Royal Mail and organizing the delivery of an item. A text was sent to the victim with a link asking them to pay a small fee to get their delivery, with the scammer aiming to get their mark’s bank details.

We then looked at the social data around scams. To do this, we wrote a query that found mentions of people saying they, or someone they knew, had been scammed. Here’s how that data stacks up over the last few years.

We can see the same trend in this data, with a spike as the pandemic began, and levels remaining above where they were pre-pandemic. But we can also see that these types of posts were increasing in the second half of 2019.

That means it’s likely scammers were already ramping up their efforts before Covid-19 hit, but the virus offered them new opportunities to jump on.

The increase in these posts are huge. If we compare 1 January to 23 May this year to the same period in 2019, they’ve jumped by 230%. That’s a staggering rise.

When it came to the type of scams, we saw the same topics rising to the top as we saw in our search data. There were a lot of mentions referencing payment apps and online marketplaces, along with “money” being the biggest topic.

Worryingly, these types of posts aren’t falling in line with the falling search interest. This suggests that the situation isn’t improving on all fronts. It’s worth noting too that we’re looking at public social media posts reporting scams. Not everyone who falls victim to a scam will broadcast their misfortune, especially as the experience can leave people feeling ashamed.

Hopefully more people are becoming aware of them and can educate others to spot scams, but, for the time being, it seems plenty of scammers are still finding success.

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Stay safe,

The Brandwatch React team