Meta needs to start tackling UK scams, says Lee Boyce

In November, I was at an editor’s dinner with the bigwigs of a major high street bank. That evening, it so happened that I was sitting next to its head of fraud.

When I asked what scam trends the bank was seeing, it lit the torch paper for a diatribe about Meta-owned platforms and how most scams originate from Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.

Usually, these types of evening are relatively dull – but it’s fair to say I was captivated by this bold statement and how animated he was about it. 

He went on to describe Facebook Marketplace to me as the Wild West of scammers.

He also revealed that while investment fraud is low volume, but high reward, scams through social media websites are typically high volume and low reward, draining resources from fraud teams.

That is, scammers rely on hooking in vast numbers of victims to rake in big sums of cash. 

It’s safe to say he – and bosses at the bank which I cannot name due to Chatham House rules – were incredulous with a lack of action from Meta.

After that dinner, one of our reporters managed to get banks to go on the record about how bad the scam problem at Facebook Marketplace had become.

From dodgy bank transfers to fake listings, the platform has a number of traps to dodge, even as a seller.

I had seen it with my own eyes. Whereas a few years ago I sold a few items on the platform to local people who turned up with cash with minimum fuss, last year, there was a darker tone to selling.

For example, I posted a chest of drawers – and within the hour, I’d had numerous dodgy looking private messages. One of those was particularly convincing.

The interested ‘buyer’ messaged asking if the drawers were the same ones as being sold at a certain furniture retailer, and they sent a website link to me to check.

The temptation was to click that link and check if they were the same to secure the sale. 

But, common sense took hold and I hovered over the link first… and it was clearly a phishing attempt.

Fast forward six months after our damning report, and big banks are now becoming incredibly vocal about the Meta scam problem – and fair play to them for finally taking aim at Meta.

After all, they are constantly in the firing line when it comes to victims being reimbursed. In a nutshell, they don’t want their customers being scammed. It’s expensive.

Last week, Lloyds Banking Group also went with the ‘Wild West’ line – a separate bank to the one I had the dinner with – and it revealed two-thirds of scams now start on Meta-owned platforms.

That is an incredible number.

Lloyds, whose brands include Hailfax and Bank of Scotland, estimates someone falls victim on a Meta-owned platform every seven minutes, costing consumers £27 million this year alone.

The average amount lost by the victims of purchase scams is around £570. 

Clothes, trainers, gaming consoles and mobile phones are among the most common goods being falsely advertised for sale.

In early May, TSB also attacked Meta. It revealed scams taking place through Meta account for 80 per cent of fraud cases within its top three fraud categories.

TSB said: ‘Social media companies must urgently clean up their platforms to protect the countless innocent people who use their services every day.’

Meanwhile, Nationwide Building Society said: ‘We need to a joint approach whereby social media platforms, including Meta, work with telecoms, financial services and government to stop fraud at the outset – not just after the criminals have struck.’

Those are wise words. It’s time to put more pressure on Meta to stop these scams – if Meta was on the hook for refunding victims, I’m sure it would take the problem far more seriously.

The Government last month revealed several measures to tackle the scam mountain (better late than never).

I implore it to listen to the banks and start cracking the whip on Meta. It’s time to force the US-tech giant to tackle scams at source and how it plans to do it.