This paper considers the unusual behavior of functionally graded materials/structures when the surface effect is involved. It is found that on the assumption that the surface energy is not positive semi-definite, the solution can be non-unique. Several examples are given for simple spherically-symmetric and axisymmetric FGM bodies with surface effects characterized by Gurtin-Murdoch surface elasticity. The results show that the conditions for non-uniqueness of solution emerge when the magnitude of negative effective surface modulus is of the order of a characteristic dimension of the problem multiplied by the bulk modulus near the surface, which is quite different from that for homogeneous materials. This paper considers the unusual behavior of functionally graded materials / structures when the surface effect is involved. It is found that on the assumption that the surface energy is not positive semi-definite, the solution can be non-unique. simple spherically-symmetric and axisymmetric FGM bodies with surface effects characterized by Gurtin-Murdoch surface elasticity. The results show that the conditions for non-uniqueness of solution emerge when the magnitude of negative effective surface modulus is of the order of a characteristic dimension of the problem multiplied by the bulk modulus near the surface, which is quite different from that for homogeneous materials.