Shocking Exposé: Victims Break Their Silence on Devastating Fraud Epidemic Sweeping Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp!

meta scams

Exclusive: Call on Meta to curb the rise of scams on its platforms, costing UK households £250m this year

Fri 16 Jun 2023 09:00 EDT

The social media giant Goal is facing increasing pressure from UK parliamentarians, consumer groups and the banking sector over its failure to prevent a “tsunami” of fraud on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, where Brits lose sums that ” change their lives” every day.

It comes as a Guardian investigation reveals the human stories behind scams originating from Meta platforms, with a national estimate released this week predicting that the tech firm’s failure to crack down on fraud will cost UK homes. £250 million during 2023.

It is said that someone in the UK fell victim to a shopping scam that started on Facebook or Instagram. every seven minutesThe Guardian asked people who had been scammed on these sites, as well as on its WhatsApp platform, to get in touch.

A Facebook user told us she was scammed out of her life savings and went into debt, losing a total of £70,000, after being duped by an investment scam. While some people lost large sums of money, a stream of unsuspecting online shoppers have reported being scammed out of smaller amounts when ordering from fake online stores advertised on Facebook and instagram.

Among the most disturbing experiences shared are those of victims of WhatsApp “Hi Mom” ​​phishing scam, in which scammers pose as family members to get them to send large sums of money.

Valerie, 73, one of the many victims, handed over £2,000 to someone purporting to be her son, a small business owner who had borrowed money in the past. Long sick with Covid, she said she would “never get over” the humiliation of being caught this way.

Earlier this week, TSB said it thought scams originating from Meta platforms could account for up to £250m in losses to UK households by 2023. The bank says there were huge spikes in fraud originating from Meta-owned sites and apps in 2022, which were responsible for 80% of cases was treated.

Many victims told us that they had found it difficult to report scams to Goal or that when they did, they received an automatic response, or no response at all.

Shadow digital, culture, media and sports secretary Lucy Powell said social media bosses had been left “off the hook for too long”.

“Despite the staggering scale of online scams, the government had to be forced to include fraud and scams in the online security bill, only to delay and water it down at the last minute,” he said.

“It’s time they stopped bowing to vested interests and stood up for consumers and victims.”

The online security bill that is going through parliament will require technology and social media platforms to remove fraudulent adswhile the government new antifraud The measures include asking technology companies to make it easier to report fraud and allowing banks to delay suspicious payments. But there are no provisions for tech platforms to compensate customers for scams.

Robin Bulloch, chief executive of TSB, said he was “deeply concerned” about high levels of fraud on Meta sites. He said: “As the only bank with a fraud money-back guarantee, we have unrivaled insight on this issue and it’s tragic to see UK households lose life-changing sums every day due to insufficient protection across platforms. Goal”.

With banks now in hot water over a huge rebate bill, TSB, Barclays, Nationwide and Starling Bank are among those arguing that California’s $700bn tech giant should make a financial contribution to these costs. Meta makes huge sums of money from advertising, with the accounts of Only Facebook operations in the UK showing advertiser gross revenues skyrocketing by more than 37% in 2022 to £3.3bn.

Matt Hammerstein, chief executive of Barclays UK, echoed the dire situation, saying the country was “suffering from an epidemic of scams”, with his data showing that 77% was done on technology platforms, including social media sites and online markets.

“It is in everyone’s interest that technology companies now join this fight in earnest, to prevent the uncontrolled growth of what is now the most common crime in the UK, costing the economy billions every year. “, said. “If they are not willing to act quickly enough on a voluntary basis, tech companies may need a financial incentive to act, so they should be required to contribute to victim reimbursement based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle. ‘”.

Starling Bank Described Facebook as the “biggest single enabler of fraud” suffered by its customers, followed by Instagram. He removed all paid ads from Meta platforms in December 2021 in protest of his failure to address this issue.

“The government’s measures do not go far enough and we are disappointed that the responsibility for reimbursing customers rests with the banks alone, while the social media platforms, where the fraud originated, are left free,” he said in a statement. . “These platforms, including Meta, profit from crime and yet remain outside the reach of the law.”

The group of consumers Which? It said its own investigation found that misleading and potentially fraudulent investment ads were reaching users on Facebook and Instagram. Rocío Concha, Which?’s director of policy and advocacy, said Meta and other social media companies needed to “step up and take responsibility for stopping scams.”

To win the fight against fraud, Concha said it was crucial that the online security bill included the “strongest possible protections for consumers and passed without further delay. This will give Ofcom the ability to issue fines against social media companies that fail to prevent fraudsters from targeting innocent people through their platforms.”

Concha said that banks should not be freed from responsibility for reimbursing victims of fraud. “They facilitate scams by transferring funds to scammers and then often compounding the devastating financial and emotional impact victims experience by treating them as guilty and refusing to reimburse them. It is vital that the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which will pave the way for new rules that require the vast majority of fraud victims to be reimbursed by their bank or payment provider, is signed into law as soon as possible.”

When asked about scams, Meta said fraud was an industry-wide problem, with scammers using increasingly sophisticated methods. “We don’t want anyone to be a victim, which is why our platforms have systems in place to block scams, financial services advertisers now need to be authorized, and we run consumer awareness campaigns on how to spot fraudulent behavior,” Meta said in a statement.