Fake ads. Fake products. Fake celebrity endorsement scams. Romance scams. Investment scams. A staggering variety of scams can be found on social media. 

They can not only lead to the loss of personal data and severe financial loss, but also cause substantial emotional harm. 

Victims can be left embarrassed, upset and angry and can experience stress, worry, loneliness and depression as a result of becoming a victim. 

Given the severity of these harms, it is essential that social media users are appropriately protected, but the best way to do this is yet to be determined.

With this in mind, Which? has carried out research to improve our understanding of user behaviour and attitudes towards scams on social media, with the findings published today in our report: Connecting the world to fraudsters? Protecting social media users from scams.

We conducted in-depth qualitative research with an online community of social media users over ten days.

We found a majority of the participants that we surveyed were concerned about scams, but often with other social media users in mind, rather than themselves; a third who were not concerned about scams tended to believe they were capable of keeping themselves safe.

However, our work with the online community suggested that these users are often being lulled into a false sense of security, seeing the platform primarily as a social space for chatting to family and friends. In addition, our research showed that while users tended to expect that systems and processes were in place already to protect them from scams, they were disappointed with the reality.

Worryingly, when we asked participants to identify types of scam, none of them were aware of all of them and substantial numbers of people failed to recognise more obvious scams. 

Our research suggests it is younger, supposedly more digital-savvy social media users who are most likely to be susceptible to scams. This is because they were the most persuadable group and most likely to engage with the innocuous-looking quizzes and games sometimes used as an entry point for scams.

The impact for those who fall victim to these scams, whether on social media sites, search engines, or via ads hosted on websites, can be financially and emotionally devastating. Even those conned out of relatively small amounts through purchase scams speak of shame, despair and damage to their confidence lasting for months or even years.

As we continue to look for new ways to tackle these online scams cross-sector efforts are imperative to protect consumers. This includes continuing to share information to build the clearest possible picture of where consumer harm is happening online and how it is impacting on their customers - both financially and emotionally.

It is clear from our research that the platforms used by fraudsters need to step up. Online platforms must do much more not only to raise awareness of scams but also to monitor and block harmful content and adverts. It is unreasonable for the burden of protecting consumers from scams to weigh so heavily on customers themselves.

Which? strongly agrees with the view of UK Finance and other experts that the scope of any new regulatory framework for online harms should be expanded to include fraud. 

The government has the perfect opportunity to address this growing problem in the upcoming Online Harms Bill. If however it is not included, ministers must set out proposals for further action to effectively protect consumers from online scams.

Then we can finally ensure the tech giants are held to account and join us in a genuinely cross-sector approach to tackling the scourge of online scams.

Digital Innovation Summit - Economic Crime Tech

The Digital Innovation Summit is UK Finance's flagship technology event. This year the event features a dedicated Economic Crime Tech stream to discuss how the industry can defend our customers and systems from organised crime.

The digital era has brought about innovations that have irrevocably changed the way we live for the better. It has, however, also left us as a society more vulnerable than ever before to criminal attacks - you are now more likely to be robbed by invisible enemies than a villain on the street. Never have consumers, businesses and nations been so exposed to unseen threats and malign intent.

Taking place between 2-20 November, and free for members and associate members, the Digital Innovation Summit will welcome leading experts from across financial services together with hundreds of delegates who will have the opportunity to network, share and shape the debate.

View the agenda