The UK is in the midst of a fraud epidemic. People are now more likely to be scammed than burgled, mugged, or have their car stolen. Yet while banks face mounting scrutiny and regulation, the tech platforms where most scams originate continue to operate with minimal accountability and deafening silence from Silicon Valley.
According to UK Finance’s latest fraud report, losses from purchase scams rose to a record £87.1m in the first half of 2024, the highest ever recorded, while investment scam losses surged by 34% to £144.4m. These scams overwhelmingly start online, often through social media, search engines, and messaging platforms.
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Banks are under pressure to reimburse victims and tighten controls, yet the true enablers, Big Tech platforms, remain largely untouched. The result? A fraud crisis is hiding in plain sight, with the public left to pick up the pieces.
The current state of fraud
Although the latest UK Finance fraud figures show that reported financial losses are growing more slowly, we’re still seeing a familiar yet deeply troubling pattern: the number of reported fraud cases continues to rise year on year.
But these figures only scratch the surface. The truth is that fraud is vastly underreported, especially APP fraud, and the financial and emotional damage being done to victims every day is far greater than what the numbers suggest.
What’s especially troubling is the increasing internationalisation of this crime. According to the report, 11% of APP fraud losses now involve cross-border transactions. These scams are harder to detect, trace, and recover from.
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By GlobalDataLaw enforcement faces significant challenges in tackling fraud in the UK, including resource limitations and the complexity of online fraud. The situation is exacerbated by the high volume of fraud cases, which overwhelm existing systems, and the relatively short sentences for convicted fraudsters.
UK victims are losing hundreds, even thousands of pounds, with almost no hope of retrieving their money once it has been transferred overseas.
Fighting fake finfluencers
Fraud isn’t just a banking problem anymore. It’s a tech problem. A societal problem. And we need to start calling it what it is: a crisis made worse by platforms that have so far failed to take real responsibility.
70% of APP fraud now begins online – much of it on social media. Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms are now the frontline in the fraud ecosystem. Criminals are using these platforms to scout and groom victims, launder money through false identities, and even train AI models to scale their deception.
Meanwhile, tech companies continue to profit from this activity. They know where scams are happening. They know how their platforms are being exploited. And yet, their response remains slow, piecemeal, and largely reactive.
Fake ‘finfluencers’ operating on social media sites, many of which are owned by Meta, have been the latest pain point highlighted by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and other regulators.
In June this year, nine regulators, from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy, United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom took part in a week of action against illegal finfluencers. The warning alerts resulted in over 650 take-down requests on social media platforms and more than 50 websites operated by unauthorised finfluencers.
Meta is a key culprit when it comes to facilitating the proliferation of fake finfluencers. In a recent evidence session, the FCA told a Treasury committee that other social media platforms were “more responsive” than Meta when it came to taking down harmful posts.
It is simply unacceptable that many fake ‘finfluencers’ continue to exploit social media users through a range of scams, from investment fraud to romance scams. It’s time for social media platforms to take responsibility and implement stronger measures to prevent these crimes from happening in the first place.
Prevention as a priority
It’s time to move the dial toward prevention. Social media giants must be held accountable when fraud originates on their platforms. Whether through enforceable regulation, meaningful financial penalties, or targeted incentives, these companies should be legally required to prevent, detect, and disrupt fraud at scale.
This means prominent, persistent fraud awareness campaigns, not buried in obscure help centres, but front and centre in the spaces where scams thrive. Social media users need to see bold, high-impact ads highlighting the reality of purchase scams, fake job offers, impersonation, sextortion, and bogus investments. We need real victim stories and stats, visible to the people most at risk.
But we also need the platforms to deploy the same technical defences they already use for combating misinformation. For example, automatic warnings, banners, and misinformation labels for content that raises red flags, whether it’s dodgy investment pitches, suspicious job posts, or accounts behaving like criminal bots.
That includes AI-generated content detection and friction signals for users exposed to high-risk interactions. If they can do this for public health and elections, they can do it for fraud. These are the same tools used to combat misinformation, and it’s time they’re used to tackle fraud.
We are in the midst of a fraud epidemic. And while banks are often the ones in the headlines, the real battleground is shifting. Until tech companies start treating fraud as a frontline issue, we will continue to lose ground, and victims will continue to pay the price.
No more excuses. Tech firms have the tools, the data, and the reach. What they lack is the will and that must change.
Silvija Krupena is Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit at RedCompass Labs
