Facebook is worst place for scams after Brits lose £214,000,000 in social media rip-offs
British social media users have reported losses of £214 million in financial scams over the last five years, police data shows.
Facebook has overtaken Instagram as the worst place for rip-offs, with the former generating 1,411 reports to police in 2024 and the latter 828.
Losses via the social network were £28 million in 2024, with the picture-sharing platform next highest at £11 million, according to the data from Action Fraud, the national fraud and cybercrime reporting service.
LinkedIn had the fewest reports compared with other platforms, although its users were hit by the highest losses per scam.
More than £40,000 was lost per report on the business networking platform, the data obtained by comparison website Good Money Guide shows. Scams were growing fastest on TikTok, with reports increasing 63% in 2024 compared with the year before — although the average amount lost decreased by -58%
Richard Berry, founder of the Good Money Guide, said: ‘The problem of social media financial scams is not going away – and it’s time that someone held the platforms responsible.
‘UK consumers have lost more than £214 million to scams in the last five years alone, and the channels are not taking the problem seriously.
‘It took almost three years for Facebook to remove a fraudulent advert I flagged, and it’s depressing to think how many victims were suckered in during that time.
‘It’s time that the regulators started fining social networks for their profits-over-protection attitude that allows these scam adverts to be shown.
‘If you’re looking to invest, make sure you’re dealing with a trustworthy, FCA-regulated company and do plenty of careful research before you take the plunge. There is never an urgency to investing, and if you feel under any pressure, or if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.’
In January, Metro reported on an ex-soldier who was conned out of his life savings by a scammer who used Sir Rod Stewart’s face to advertise a fraudulent investment scheme.
Wayne Westhead, 65, a former British Army Major, invested £200,000 into the fraudulent Bitcoin scheme while his wife was battling breast cancer.
He had stepped down from his job in order to care for her and looked for ways to boost his Army pension in order to support the pair of them.
He then spotted an ad on Facebook advertising a Bitcoin investment scheme promising high returns with little to no risk attached, which appeared to be endorsed by the singer.
Rising toll of social media scams
Financial scams have rocketed on social media since the turn of the decade, with crime reports trebling in the space of three years.
Total reported losses were six times higher than they had been three years previously, rising from £13 million in 2019 to £75 million in 2022.
One investor told police that in 2022 they lost £4 million to a single financial scam on social media, which was almost six times more than the biggest single loss recorded in 2021 of £700,000.
Of the victims, 24 were children aged under 10 were caught out, with 593 victims aged under 20.
The figures have been retrieved by Good Money Guide after a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau which sits alongside Action Fraud within the City of London Police. The information concerns reports relating to social media platforms that mention ‘trading’, ‘investing’, ‘stocks’, ‘crypto’, or ‘broker’ over the last five years.
Sir Rod had no knowledge his likeness was being used in the scheme and did not participate in any way.
The figures tally with a rise in social media and email account hacking, with 34,434 reports made to Action Fraud in 2024, compared to 22,530 the year before, separate data shows.
The national reporting service has joined with Meta to encourage users to take an extra step of online protection by enabling two-step verification for each online account they have.
The most common motives for social media hacking were investment or ticket fraud or account theft.
A spokesperson for LinkedIn told Metro: ‘We’re investing in new technology, including artificial intelligence, and teams of experts to find and remove the vast majority of detected scams and fake accounts before members see them.
‘We offer free identity verification to help members make more informed decisions on who they are interacting with, as well as an optional safety feature that, when enabled, may automatically detect harmful content like scams. We also encourage members to report any suspicious messages so we can investigate.’
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta maintains that it doesn’t allow fraudulent activity and works closely with law enforcement to keep scammers off its platforms.
The social media giant has recently expanded testing of facial recognition technology to the UK and EU to help protect people from ‘celeb-bait’ scams and to enable faster account recovery.
It is also working with industry-led group Stop Scams UK, a business membership organisation, to identify frauds at source.
Social media users are encouraged by Meta to create a strong password, enable two-factor authentication and be suspicious of emails or messages asking for personal details.
Of the platforms for which data was provided, Facebook was the most used, with more than three billion active users globally in early 2024, according to data service Statista.
TikTok has community guidelines aimed at allowing users to learn about ways to be financially responsible without worrying about scams or financial exploitation.
The clip-sharing platform maintains that it does not allow attempts to defraud or scam members of its community.
Of the videos taken down for violating fraud and scam policies in the fourth quarter of 2024, 95.3% were removed proactively, meaning they were identified and deleted before they were reported.
The Chinese-owned platform has committed to the UK government’s Online Fraud Charter and pledged to take additional action to block and remove fraudulent content from its platform.
This includes being among the first platforms to agree to enable users to find where to report fraud and scams ‘within two clicks’ as welcomed by the government in its Fraud Strategy.
To report fraud and for advice and information visit Action Fraud
Do you have a story you would like to share? Contact josh.layton@metro.co.uk
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