The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Social media users at risk from scams
Social media users a re se r iou s ly underestimating their chances of falling victim to online fraud, Which? has warned.
The consumer champion said too many people were suffering devastating emotional and financial consequences because technology giants were not doing enough to protect them.
Its latest research, among Facebook users, showed a majority were lulled into a false sense of security by the platform’s social nature.
They m i s taken ly assumed they could spot fraud and the company’s systems would protect them effectively.
But Which? found onethird of participants did not know fake products might be advertised on the site – putting them at risk of falling victim to purchase scams.
A quarter did not spot an investment scam advert with a fake endorsement from a celebrity.
If this was to be rep l i ca ted a c ro s s
Facebook’s UK user base of 44 million people, huge numbers of users could be at risk from fraudsters who lure in victims with fake accounts, posts and paidfor ads on the site.
Which? has heard from many victims of these types of scams – including a man who lost nearly £100,000 after clicking on an online inves tmen t adver t f e a t u r i n g f a k e endorsements from Mo n e y S a v i n g E x p e r t ’s Martin Lewis and Deborah Meaden from BBC show Dragons’ Den.
T h e em o t i o n a l consequences are equally serious. Scam victims told Which? that it had shaken their confidence in themselves and their ability to trust other people.
A woman who lost £30,000 to an investment scam which featured prominently on Google said she still feels shame and despair 15 months on from her ordeal, adding: “It breaks you as a person.”
Which? has urged the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to act now and include online scams in the upcoming Online Harms Bill.
Which? policy and advocacy director Rocio Concha said: “Social media firms such as Facebook are failing to step up and properly protect users from fraudsters on their sites.
“The time for serious action on online scams is now. If the government doesn ’ t grasp the opportunity to deliver this in the upcoming Online Harms Bill, it must urgently come forward with new proposals to stem the g row ing t id e o f sophisticated scams by criminals online.”
In response, Facebook pointed Which? to some of the measures it has taken to deal with scam adverts, including it building a global safety and security team of more than 35,000 people, and investing in artificial intelligence and machine learning to help keep users safe and secure.
Google said protecting users from ad scams and fraud was “a key priority”.