Social media sites are wild west for shopping fraud, says UK bank

theguardian.com:

More than two-thirds of all online shopping scams affecting UK consumers start on Facebook and Instagram, with social media now a “wild west” for fraud, according to one of Britain’s biggest banks.

Research from Lloyds Banking Group estimates that someone in the UK falls victim to a purchase scam originating in one of the two Meta-owned platforms every seven minutes – costing consumers more than £500,000 a week.

Lloyds said tech companies needed to contribute to refunds when their platforms are used “to defraud innocent victims”.

The intervention demonstrates a hardening of the battle lines between Britain’s banks and the tech firms – in particular Meta, which in addition to Facebook and Instagram also owns WhatsApp. Lloyds is the second bank in a month to publicly name Meta, after TSB said there had been a huge jump in the number of scams originating from sites and apps owned by the California-based company.

Just over a fortnight ago the banking industry body UK Finance accused social media companies of “profiting” from scams taking place on their platforms and called on them to reimburse victims.

The growth in online shopping has been accompanied by a surge in criminals tricking people into paying for goods and services that do not exist. Victims are lured in by the promise of cut-price or hard-to-find items, often advertised via social media, and are typically asked to send money directly from their account to another account via bank transfer. Lloyds said that sometimes users “don’t know if the user profile and item are genuine”.

Clothes, trainers, gaming consoles and mobile phones were among the most common goods being falsely advertised, said Lloyds.

The banking group said its research – based on an analysis of reported