The UK government wants to combat the most common crime in the country, fraud. In accordance with the new strategy promoted by the Executive, the UK bank TSB has analyzed the internal fraud data of its clients between the years 2021 and 2020. The entity has detected that the applications and web portals owned by Meta, Mark Zuckerberg's company, represent 80% of fraud cases. For this reason, they ask their clients to be prudent and stay alert.
In this investigation, TSB categorized these fraud cases into three categories: purchase, phishing, and investment fraud. Thus, the bank highlights that "Facebook Marketplace is responsible for 60% of the cases of fraud in TSB purchases, with a year-on-year increase of 97%."
They believe this high percentage is due to the fact that the company hardly investigates the profiles of sellers and advertisements. In addition, the report points out that the platform does not have an integrated payment method to carry out transactions safely.
In this investigation, TSB has detected that in 2022 fraudulent cases through WhatsApp have increased by 300%. In the analysis as a whole, those detected in the instant messaging application represent 65% of all fraud cases. The bank indicates that Facebook and text messages follow with 13%.
With regard to the category of investment fraud stipulated by TSB, the bank indicates that, after its analysis, they have detected meta-owned platforms that are responsible for 87% of these cases. In detail, Instagram is the application that represents the highest percentage, 67%, second to Facebook. In third place is a platform that is not part of the universe created by Zuckerberg, Snapchat, with 9%.
“Social media companies urgently need to clean up their platforms to protect the countless innocent people who use their services every day. In the meantime, we urge the public to remain wary of potential scam content and to spread the word to help protect those around them," said TSB's director of fraud prevention, Paul Davis.
"It is time for social networks and telephone companies to take financial responsibility for the increasing levels of fraud taking place on their platforms," he added. In addition, the bank warned its customers to be attentive to any unexpected messages that try to be from family or friends, and advised to contact the person directly before sending a payment.
The UK Government wants to combat and end fraud, as it is estimated that this crime costs £7 billion a year to the country's economy. Among the measures announced, 400 new specialist investigators from the police and the National Crime Agency have been recruited as part of this renewal to investigate these cases.
Also, the fact that banks will be allowed to delay the payment process, so that those cases that appear to be suspicious can be properly investigated. In addition, there will be a total ban on cold calling for any financial product, among others.
