Meta needs to start tackling UK scams, says Lee Boyce

In November I was at an editor’s dinner with the top gentlemen of a major bank. Coincidentally, that evening I was sitting next to his head of fraud.

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

Usually nights like this are relatively boring, but honestly I was fascinated by this bold statement and how animated he was about it.

He then described Facebook Marketplace to me as the Wild West of scammers.

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

That is, scammers rely on bringing in large numbers of victims to rake in large sums of money.

It’s safe to say that he – and bosses at the bank I can’t 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 publicize just how bad the Facebook Marketplace scam problem had become.

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

I had seen it with my own eyes. Where a few years ago I sold a few items on the platform to local folks who showed up with cash with minimal fuss, there was a darker tone to sales last year.

For example, I posted a chest of drawers – and within an hour I had received countless dodgy private messages. One was particularly convincing.

The interested ‘buyer’ messaged me asking if the drawers were the same as those sold at a particular furniture store, and they sent me a website link to check.

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

But common sense got the better of me and I first hovered over the link… and it was clearly a phishing attempt.

Fast forward six months after our damning report, and major banks are now getting 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 line of fire when it comes to compensation for victims. Basically, they don’t want their customers to be scammed. It is expensive.

Last week Lloyds Banking Group also went with the ‘Wild West’ line – a different bank than the one I had dined with – and it revealed that two-thirds of the scams now start on platforms owned by Meta.

That’s an incredible number.

Lloyds, whose brands include Hailfax and Bank of Scotland, estimates someone is victimized every seven minutes on a platform owned by Meta, costing consumers £27m this year alone.

The average amount lost by purchase scam victims is around £570.

Clothing, sports shoes, game consoles and mobile phones are among the most common goods that are falsely offered for sale.

In early May, TSB also attacked Meta. It revealed Meta account scams accounted for 80 percent of fraud cases within the top three fraud categories.

TSB said, “Social media companies urgently need to clean up their platforms to protect the countless innocent people who use their services every day.”

Meanwhile, Nationwide Building Society said, “We need a collaborative approach where social media platforms, including Meta, work with telecoms, financial services and government to stop fraud from the start — not just after the criminals strike.”

Those are wise words. It’s time to put more pressure on Meta to stop these scams. If Meta was responsible for refunding victims, I’m sure it would take the issue much more seriously.

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

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