Helping to Stop Online Scams

These days we are all more reliant on technology to stay in touch. But some people use this technology to take advantage of others by running scams online. We don’t want fraudulent activity on our platforms, but unfortunately sometimes sophisticated scams make it onto our platforms.

Today, we’re launching an awareness campaign on Facebook & Instagram to help people spot some of the more prevalent scams online as well as offering some resources they can use if they are scammed.

The campaign features a series of educational videos designed to help people spot and avoid scams online and includes some of the more prevalent methods including romance, investment, cash flipping, money mule and friend in need scams. The individuals behind these scams are constantly evolving their methods and shifting communication channels to reach victims and we continue to invest in new technologies and methods to help detect and protect people on our service from these scams. 

This is part of our longer term commitments to fighting scams. As well as tackling scams that make it onto our platforms, we’re also focused on prevention and giving direct support to people impacted by this criminal behaviour.  We donated £3 million to Citizens Advice to run a UK anti-online scams initiative for three years, which included a telephone helpline for people who have been scammed online

Scams take place across a host of communication channels such as mail, telephone, text and online.  We’ve recently announced a partnership with Stop Scams UK, a cross-sector collaboration of responsible companies from across the financial, telecom and technology sectors who are working proactively together to help stop scams at source by identifying scams, sharing insights and best practices and developing technical solutions to tackle scams and help keep people safe.

We have also committed to introducing a new onboarding process this year which will require UK regulated financial services to be authorised by the FCA prior to serving financial services adverts on our platforms. 

Top Tips 

Remember, if something seems too good to be true, it normally is.

• Never share your bank or card details with someone you don’t know and trust.
• Use unique passwords for different accounts and never share your passwords.
• Make sure to set up two-factor authentication on all of your accounts.

Independent help and advice is available from the Citizens Advice Scams Action Service.

Read more on the campaign.

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