Meta, social media sites let Aussies down over scams, Sue Ellery says, with new figures showing loss of money

Social media companies, such as Meta, have let West Australians down by failing to crack down earlier on online scams, they State Government believes, releasing alarming new figures showing a huge increase in lost money. Revealing almost $22 million lost to scammers in 2023 — a 36 per cent rise on the year before — Commerce Minister Sue Ellery and Consumer Protection Commissioner Trish Blake lashed out at Meta for failing to stop scams on Facebook. Three victims lost more than $1 million in investment scams. In 2023, Facebook scams climbed by 62 per cent compared to the year before, with rising numbers of reports regarding the site’s Marketplace function, and fake investment ads. Facebook Marketplace was responsible for 163 victims losing $116,500. The numbers came as Federal Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones revealed he would include seller verification measures in a mandatory code of conduct with social media companies. Ms Ellery, who said she would write to Meta regarding the scam figures, believing Meta and other social media sites had let West Australians down. “It would be fair to say they have let this get to the point that it is now when they could have acted earlier,” she said. “They control the algorithms. It’s their systems. They could have — like Stephen Jones announced this morning — put in place seller verification arrangements years ago “They’ve taken advantage and made a lot of money out of it.” Investment scams, such as the ads raised by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart and former Sunrise host David Koch, which mostly involved cryptocurrency, saw $12.1 million in lost money. Asked why ads for scams were still appearing on Facebook, Ms Blake said Consumer Protection had asked the same question of Meta, but was met with silence. “There’s nothing — it’s not like they don’t have the technology to intercept these fakes,” Ms Blake said. “They run algorithms all the time to prohibit unlawful products being sold — so obviously, they won’t allow ads for guns and things like that. So there’s no doubt they’ve got the technology there to cut across.” “These people invest a lot of time and money in grooming you and in creating the perception that it’s all real.” A Meta spokesman said: “Scammers present a challenge in many environments, including social media, and they are constantly finding new ways to deceive people. Meta adopts a multi-faceted approach to tackle scams. “We continue to work with the National Anti-Scam Centre and across industries to identify new ways to stop scammers. We also encourage people to use our in-app reporting tools when they see any suspicious activity. “We use both technology, such as new machine learning techniques, and specially trained reviewers to identify and action content and accounts that violate our policies.” While romance scams remained high, Ms Blake also flagged a rise in scammers using the low rental vacancy rate to lure victims into parting with money. Over 65s represented the most scam reports via the online reporting tool, but the 35-44 age group lost the most amount of money, more than $1.8 million. Ms Ellery encouraged users to pause before purchasing or providing personal details, saying: “if it looks too good to be true, it probably isn’t.” Ms Rinehart last year wrote to Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg saying “numerous scammers” were using her name to “fraudulently solicit money from vulnerable people”. “Greater action is needed to stop scams and intentionally fraudulent content from being available and advertised to,” she said. “Meta needs to do more (as) innocent Australians are falling victim to job scams through Facebook.”