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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Rupert Jones

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

Meta’s Facebook Marketplace site on a mobile phone
Meta’s Facebook Marketplace site for buying and selling goods online. Photograph: Stephen Frost/Alamy

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.

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