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Social media fraudsters duping Brits

10th December 2019
Posted by Aston Avery

Christmas shoppers are being urged to be on guard against social media scams, as new research shows 34 per cent have been scammed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat. The average amount people are being tricked into handing over is £393, whilst the age group losing the most money to fraudsters is 45-54-year-olds, with the average person in that age group being scammed out of £498.

The research from Lloyds Bank surveyed over 2,000 UK adults and found nearly half of people had sent money via bank transfer to sellers on social media platforms and never received their items. One in eight people have bought something from someone in a social media group which did not arrive, whilst 12 per cent have clicked on a link shared on social media and bought a product that was never delivered to them. More than one in five (21 per cent) have bought an item on an online marketplace such as Facebook marketplace via bank transfer and never received it.

Aston spoke to Mike Haley, CEO at Cifas and Paul Davis, retail fraud director at Lloyd’s Bank to discuss the research in further detail and they were also on hand to offer advice on how to protect ourselves from being scammed.