TSB has pointed the finger at Meta for its part in the vast majority of the UK’s fraud cases, with the bank finding that at least 80% of all scams within the three biggest fraud categories originated on the Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram platforms in 2022.
Purchase fraud was found to have come through Meta platforms on 80% of occasions. Significantly, 60% of those cases came through Facebook Marketplace, followed by just 18% on Instagram. In fact, fraud from scam activity grew 97% on Facebook Marketplace in one year.
Meanwhile, Meta’s platforms were the origin point of 86% of impersonation fraud cases, mainly driven by “Friends and Family Fraud” on WhatsApp. TSB data showed that 65% of these cases came through WhatsApp, followed by Facebook (13%) and text messages (13%). Staggeringly, cases originating on WhatsApp increased by 300% from 2021.
Investment fraud was the most prevalent on Meta’s platforms, appearing in 87% of cases at the bank. Most (59%) of these scams came through Instagram, followed by Facebook (22%). Non-Meta-owned Snapchat was present in 9% of cases.
“Social media companies must urgently clean up their platforms to protect the countless innocent people who use their services every day. In the meantime, we are urging the public to remain cautious to potential scam content – and to spread the word to help protect those around you,” said Paul Davis, Director of Fraud Prevention at TSB.
“It’s high time that social media and telephone companies took financial liability for the rising levels of fraud taking place on their platforms.”
The news from TSB comes days after the UK government announced its ‘Fraud Strategy‘, which aims to do more to stop scams ever reaching people in the first place.
