Over the past year, financial institutions around the world have sounded the alarm about the rise of investment scams on social media, particularly on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Now a popular finance app in the UK has echoed those concerns, telling lawmakers that Facebook and its associated platforms are a “hotbed” for financial scammers.

According to the app, called Revolut, 60 percent of all scam cases reported to it in the UK in 2023 originated on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Meanwhile, 33 percent of the total value of all money lost to scams began on these platforms, too.

“It has become increasingly clear that Meta platforms are being used as a hotbed for scams,” Revolut’s financial crime head Woody Malouf told UK lawmakers. “Our data not only shows that scams are being facilitated through social media platforms, but that investment scams in particular are resulting in life changing sums of money being stolen.”

To make matters worse, Revolut also says that the prevalence of these Facebook scams is on the rise, shooting up from 52 percent of all reported cases over the first half of 2023 to 66 percent in the second half of the year. And while financial institutions are doing what they can to protect their customers from the impact of this fraud, it’s clear that Facebook needs to take on a much larger role cutting them off at the source.

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