Facebook has agreed to introduce measures to stop fraudsters 'selling' on their platform. The new charter will require anyone who is asking for payment to have their details verified by Meta first. And further, the changes will require sellers on Facebook Marketplace to verify their identity and location before they can sell something.
UK police say that Facebook facilitates organised crime because they can sell stolen goods on the platform. There has been a surge and continues to be a surge in shoplifting in the UK. A lot of this is conducted by organised crime and they sell their stolen items on Facebook and other outlets such as eBay.
This will be a voluntary agreement committing tech companies to a new standard of verification and vetting of people who use these social media platforms to sell services and goods.
The only problem that I have is whether the charter will be properly enforced because at the moment Facebook is unable to enforce their policies with many people selling kittens and cats online (my area of expertise) and sometimes fraudulently because they take money without actually providing the animal.
In any case, it is a very bad idea to purchase a kitten or cat online sight unseen from somebody you don't know. It just doesn't work. It's entirely wrong and promotes the bad people who engage in these sorts of scams and dodgy businesses.
It's reported that there are "soaring rates of authorised push payment fraud". This is when a customer is tricked into authorising a payment to an account controlled by a criminal or criminals.
There has been a 29% rise in the number of romance scams. This type of fraud has netted £18.5 million for the criminals involved in the first six months of 2023!
There are some shocking stories about romance fraud on social media. A former police officer was taken in. She handed over her retirement fund of more than £100,000 to a scammer she met on a dating website. He said that he was involved in building apartments in Cyprus. He persuaded her to buy a plot. Can you believe it?
Other scams have netted the criminals £239 million over the first six months of this year. Research indicates that 60% of all reported authorised push payment fraud is connected to Meta. Meta also owns WhatsApp and Instagram.
However, it's nice to read that Mehta has agreed to this online fraud charter in the UK.
In the modern world full of fraud and bad behavior always be vigilant and switched on to scammers trying to steal your money.
Here is an infographic I created earlier which may be useful:
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.
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