Meta, parent company of Facebook, have agreed to a new online fraud charter in the UK

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.

Online adoption hub Pets4Homes clamps down on fraudulent sellers

The website Pets4Homes has decided to clamp down on unscrupulous breeders and fraudsters who use the Pets4Homes website as a portal through which they sell puppies imported illegally or bred under cruel conditions and then sold through the site despite being sick or dying. In short, Pets4Homes want to stop criminals using their website to sell sick animals, particularly puppies which are imported illegally.

Cawley travelling family were engaged in fraudulent practices in conning customers. Photo: SWNS

Pets4Homes has employed digital forensic experts in collaboration with the charity Animal Protection Services to secure 85 prosecutions with 35 cases pending decisions. They've used cyber analysts to block 40,000 adverts in five months on the website. A significant percentage of these adverts were created by gangs shipping dogs from abroad and/or using litters from stolen pedigree dogs kept under very poor conditions.

On one occasion 'travellers' in the UK made at least £300,000 by selling sick and dying cocker spaniels, schnauzers, Chihuahuas, springer spaniels, Labradors, beagles and poodles. Six members of the Cawley family, from Milton Keynes, together with seven accomplices were convicted.

These enterprises have been fuelled by market forces because of the Covid pandemic which encouraged people who were socially distance to impulsively adopt dogs forcing up prices resulting in criminal activity to take advantage of the market.

The administrators of Pets4Homes decided to take action because of a series of abuses in recent months. Their software now prevents fraudsters from selling animals when they do not possess those animals.

They check the IP addresses of those who are advertising in order to establish the veracity of the advert. They want to make sure that people who are selling these dogs live in the country and at the address listed on their account. Also, pictures of puppies for sale are scanned by software to show that they haven't been duplicated.

Another person who was prosecuted is John Lawrence from Liverpool. He sold two German Shephard puppies who died shortly after being purchased. He was convicted of knowingly selling seriously ill puppies. He was jailed for eight weeks.

Further, Animal Protection Services brought a private prosecution against Leonard Greenough from Salisbury. They used information supplied by Pets4Homes. He was selling poppies worth about £16,700 without a licence.