Lloyds: Meta platforms tied to 68% of UK scam reports

Lloyds Bank’s fraud team reports that 68% of the bank’s UK fraud complaints began on platforms owned by Meta. The bank estimates customers lost about £66 million a year after responding to scam adverts on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, up from roughly £27 million the previous year. Lloyds identifies customers in their late twenties and early thirties as the age group filing fraud reports most often.

The bank says the adverts and listings cover concert and sports tickets, cars, bikes, campervans, mobility vehicles and rental properties. Fraudsters commonly place paid adverts alongside legitimate offers, then move communication to private channels such as WhatsApp once a potential victim engages, Lloyds adds.

Lloyds’ fraud prevention director, Liz Ziegler, reported the figures and described the main scam patterns. The bank advises customers to use payment methods that provide chargeback protection, to check sellers’ profiles, and to treat unsolicited social media adverts with caution. Lloyds warns against paying by bank transfer, cryptocurrency, gift card or Friends and Family payments when buying from unknown sellers.

Meta reported that it removed more than 159 million scam adverts in one year and that 92% of those were taken down before any user reported them. The company introduced a Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange in October 2024 to let UK banks share intelligence directly and expanded anti-scam measures across WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger in March this year.

Internal company documents reviewed by officials estimated that around 10% of Meta’s 2024 advertising revenue came from scam ads and other banned or low-quality products and services, and suggested users were shown billions of higher-risk scam adverts daily. Those findings are cited in legal actions that name the company.

Two UK law firms are coordinating a group claim for victims who lost money after clicking ads on Facebook or Instagram. In the United States, plaintiffs in Bouck v. Meta and Forrest v. Meta have argued that Meta’s advertising and AI tools were used to create and optimise fraudulent ads; a federal judge declined to dismiss core claims in those cases. Santa Clara County has filed a suit alleging internal documents show Meta earned up to $7 billion a year from high-risk scam ads and limited some anti-scam measures where they might reduce advertising revenue. Meta denies wrongdoing and the cases are ongoing.

Lloyds’ figures and the company responses highlight ongoing disputes among banks, regulators and platform operators over the scale of scam advertising and the effectiveness of detection and prevention measures.