Scammers go phishing wherever the victims are. In the UK, that means Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, according to Lloyds Bank. It just revealed that Meta platforms account for over two thirds of fraud reports made by its customers.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Lloyds Bank’s fraud prevention director Liz Ziegler said that 68% of fraud reports from its customers start on a Meta-owned platform.
The scams cover everything from fake concert tickets and sporting events to bogus listings for cars, bikes, campervans, mobility vehicles, and rental properties. Lloyds said customers reported losing an estimated £66 million a year after falling victim to scam ads on Meta platforms, up from £27 million in 2023.
The victim demographic isn’t who you’d guess. Lloyds says customers in their late twenties and early thirties—supposed digital natives—are reporting scams at the highest rates.
Lloyds isn’t alone in calling out the tech giant. In 2023, TSB reported that 80% of losses across its three biggest fraud categories began on Meta platforms.
A Meta spokesperson told The Sunday Times the company:
“…removed over 159 million scam ads last year alone, 92% of which we took down before anyone reported them”.
In October 2024, Meta also launched the Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange to let UK banks share intelligence directly with the platform.
However, a Reuters investigation published in November 2025 reported that internal Meta documents estimated that roughly 10% of the company’s 2024 advertising revenue came from scam ads and ads for banned, illicit or low-quality goods and services. The documents also estimated that users were shown around 15 billion “higher risk” scam ads each day.
In March this year, Meta rolled out additional anti-scam tools across WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger.
The lawyers are circling
UK firms Richardson Hartley Law and Humphries Kerstetter are coordinating a group legal claim for victims who lost money after clicking ads on Facebook or Instagram.
Scammers’ use of Meta AI has also introduced a new dimension to legal arguments against the company. In the US, a federal judge in California refused to dismiss key claims in Bouck v. Meta and Forrest v. Meta, lawsuits brought by fraud victims who allege that scammers used Meta’s advertising and AI tools to create and optimize fraudulent ads. The plaintiffs argued that made the platform “a genuine co-conspirator in the creation of the offending content.” Meta denies wrongdoing, and the cases are ongoing.
Last month, Santa Clara County filed its own suit against Meta, citing leaked internal documents that allegedly show the company earned as much as $7 billion a year from so-called “high-risk” scam ads. The county also alleges that Meta built guardrails to prevent anti-scam measures from reducing advertising revenue too much.
Protect yourself
Even if social media companies do try their best to quash scam advertisers, they won’t catch them all. So it’s up to you to keep a watchful eye for potential fraudulent activity. Here are some tips:
- Treat unsolicited social media ads—especially ones promising hard-to-find tickets, eye-watering investment returns, or impossibly cheap goods—as a default-untrustworthy starting point.
- Research the sellers. What else do they sell on the platform? Do they have an established profile?
- Pay with a card or service that offers chargeback protection.
- Never pay by bank transfer, cryptocurrency, gift card, or Friends and Family payment methods when buying from someone you don’t know.
- Be especially wary when a Facebook or Instagram exchange tries to migrate to WhatsApp. That handoff to a private channel is a classic scammer move, taking the conversation away from public scrutiny and platform enforcement.
- Remember that seeing an ad on a major platform isn’t an endorsement. Scammers routinely pay to place ads alongside legitimate businesses.
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