FBI Issues US Social Media And Messaging Warning — What To Know

Update, July 6, 2025: This story, originally published on July 5, has been updated with clarification regarding the differences between a ramp-and-dump scheme and a pump-and-dump scheme, following the new FBI warning of threat actors taking to social media and messaging apps to execute their fraudulent activities.

It has been, without any shadow of a doubt, a busy few days regarding Federal Bureau of Investigation warnings concerning cybercrime. On June 30, the FBI issued an alert for the aviation industry that attackers from the Scattered Spider ransomware group were shifting their attention to this industry sector. By July 2, that FBI warning had become a stark reality as Qantas confirmed it had fallen victim to a “cyber incident.” Now, the FBI has issued a public service advisory, as cybercriminals are using social media platforms and messaging apps to target U.S. stock investors with a ramp-and-dump fraud. Here’s what you need to know.

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FBI Warns Of Ramp-And-Dump Frauds Using Social Media And Messaging Apps

FBI Public Service Advisory I-070325-PSA, dated July 3, has warned the general public that cyber criminals are targeting anyone in the U.S. who is investing in stocks with a ramp-and-dump fraud that is initiated through the use of social media platforms promoting investment clubs. Many of the members of these so-called clubs have, upon investigation, turned out to be fake accounts, and active members are likely to be mostly bot-operated accounts. The social media posts, the FBI said, “typically direct victims to secure messaging apps where the group operates.”

And if you are already to dismiss victims as the easily fooled, the FBI goes on to warn that the attackers are impersonating “legitimate brokerage firms or well-known stock analysts,” to create an air of respectability and, more importantly, trust. “So far in 2025, the FBI has seen at least a 300 percent increase in victim complaints referencing ramp-and-dump stock fraud from 2024,” the FBI warned, revealing just how much of a problem this has become, hence the urgent need for the advisory.

There can be some confusion about pump-and-dump and ramp-and-dump fraud schemes, but essentially, the latter is just a specific type of the former. As such, it’s not unusual to hear it referred to as a pump-and-dump scheme instead. If you want to get particular about it, then a pump-and-dump scheme will generally involve using news media, and more prevalently social media now, to promote a stock for price manipulation, alongside falsified financial statements and suspicious trading activity. Ramp-and-dump actors, on the other hand, are almost entirely controlled by the threat actors themselves rather than relying upon social media to spread fake news.

The criminals will have control over a relatively large volume of relatively low-priced stocks, and the aim of the fraud is to get investment club members to purchase shares over weeks or months in order to inflate the price. This is the ramp bit of the fraud involved. The dump comes into play once a suitably over-inflated price has been achieved and the fraudsters sell all their stock at a profit, with the investment club members left holding a fair bit of nothing at all as the price crashes.

In March, 2021, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois indicted seven people for their alleged involvement in a similar scheme. The indictments followed an FBI appeal to help “identify potential victims of a ramp-and-dump investment fraud scheme.” “Each count of securities fraud is punishable by up to 25 years in federal prison,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, “while the maximum sentence for each count of wire fraud is 20 years.”

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FBI Advice On How To Identify Ramp-And-Dump Stock Fraud

The FBI advisory recommended that investors look to recognise the following indicators of ramp-and-dump schemes:

• Unsolicited investment tips received via “accidental” text messages or social media advertisements.
• Claims from well-known financial advisors or wealth managers offering exclusive stock recommendations through online clubs.
• Pressure to act quickly based on a supposed market-moving event.
• Urgent pitches to purchase low-priced stocks in new or emerging companies, often paired with promises of dramatic price increases or guarantees to cover any investor losses.

Readers are urged to report any such incidents to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov as soon as possible.

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