New research published by Which? on 9 September has put social media at the centre of many of the online scams experienced by UK fraud victims.
The consumer group surveyed 1,501 UK adults who had lost money to fraud during the previous two years. Of those surveyed, 63% said their scam involved at least one app or website. Among the online scams reported, 55% were spread through social media, compared with 17% involving online marketplaces, 12% involving adverts or pop-ups on other websites or apps, and 9% involving search engines.
The figures do not mean that 55% of all fraud in the UK starts on social media. They describe the experiences of fraud victims included in the Which? survey, whose fieldwork was carried out by Deltapoll in June 2026 and weighted to represent UK adults who had been victims of fraud.
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram feature prominently
Meta-owned services appeared frequently in the findings. Among people in the survey who had been manipulated into authorising a fraudulent payment, Facebook was cited by 28%, WhatsApp by 17% and Instagram by 10%.
Meta told Which? that scammers use increasingly sophisticated methods to evade detection and that the company fights scams both on and off its platforms. Which?, however, argues that the organisations involved at different stages of a scam need to work together more effectively.
That matters because a modern scam may not remain on a single platform. Someone might first encounter a fake advert or account on social media, then be directed to a copycat website or private conversation before eventually being asked for personal information or money. From the victim's point of view, those separate digital services can form one convincing journey.
A customer-trust problem as well as a fraud problem
For legitimate businesses, the research is relevant even when their own website or social account has not been compromised. Fraudsters can imitate brands, create fake profiles and build convincing copies of websites without needing access to the real organisation's systems.
This makes recognisability increasingly valuable. Businesses may want to consider whether customers can easily confirm that they are dealing with the genuine company: whether official contact details are clear, social accounts are linked consistently, payment routes are understandable, and unexpected offers or messages can be checked against information on the real website.
That does not make individual businesses responsible for scams taking place on large online platforms. It does mean that customer trust now extends beyond protecting a website from technical attacks. Customers also need ways to distinguish the genuine digital presence of a business from an imitation.
Victims often struggle to recover their money
The Which? research also found that 57% of surveyed victims recovered at least some of the money they lost, while 33% recovered nothing. Outcomes varied considerably depending on the type of fraud, payment method and platform involved.
Which? is calling for stronger cooperation between online platforms, telecoms providers and financial organisations, including greater sharing of information about suspicious accounts, websites and phone numbers. Its research found that 75% of the fraud victims surveyed were comfortable in principle with organisations sharing their information where doing so could help protect others.
For businesses using social media to reach customers, the findings underline an awkward reality: the same platforms that make communication and advertising easy can also be used to manufacture convincing false identities. Making the genuine route to a business clear is therefore becoming part of the wider job of maintaining trust online.
