By Tom Haynes

Mark Zuckerberg's social media empire has been accused of fuelling Britain's fraud epidemic by one of the country's leading banks.

TSB said eight in 10 scams originated on either Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram – all companies owned by Mr Zuckerberg's company Meta.

Paul Davis, the bank’s director of fraud prevention, called on social media companies to “urgently clean up their platforms” to protect users.

TSB said fake online purchase, false impersonation scams and sham investments were the three biggest sources of fraud among its customers. 

80pc could be traced back to Meta's social media platforms, it said.

The bank's customer fraud data from 2022 also showed cases of friends and family impersonation fraud tripled compared to the prior year. 

It said such scams took place predominantly on WhatsApp, which accounted for 65pc of cases.

A recent iteration of WhatsApp scam has been the “Hi mum” text ploy, where fraudsters pretend to be distressed children to con cash out of parents.

Investment fraud took place primarily on Instagram, where six in 10 scams originated, TSB said. Facebook accounted for 22pc of cases.

Paul Davis, the bank’s director of fraud prevention, called on social media companies to “urgently clean up their platforms” to protect users and said lack of a security was preventing social media users from completing transactions securely.

He said: “It’s high time that social media and telephone companies took financial liability for the rising levels of fraud taking place on their platforms.

“A polluter pays approach will incentivise them to show greater vigilance, reduce the fraudulent activity on their platforms and, in turn, better protect consumers in the UK.”

It follows the Government’s announcement on Wednesday, in which it unveiled fresh plans to crack down on text scammers by bringing in intelligence agencies.

Writing in The Telegraph, Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, said: “We must bring more fraudsters to justice.”

Ms Braverman said the Government would be banning devices that allow criminals to send mass scam texts or disguise their calling number to make untraceable calls.

“We will also propose banning cold calling on financial products and clamp down on number spoofing,” she added.

Ms Braverman said the introduction of the long-awaited Online Safety Bill would make technology platforms responsible for protecting users from fraud.

Errant technology firms and social media platforms that fail to prevent fraud on their sites will face fines of up to 10pc of their global turnover under the new laws currently being considered by the House of Lords. 

These are expected to be brought in over the course of the next year.

Her comments were echoed by the Prime Minister, who said: “By blocking scams at the source, boosting protections for people and bolstering enforcement, we will stop more of these cold-hearted crimes from happening in the first place and make sure justice is done.”

However in a statement last night TSB said Britons “cannot wait another 12 months for vital refund protections to be brought in”.

Rocio Concha, of consumer group Which?, said the figures from TSB exposed the “worrying nature of social media scams”, adding Facebook and Instagram users were being bombarded with “a flood of misleading and potentially fraudulent investment adverts”.

She added: “The Government must take a vital step in the fight against fraud by ensuring upcoming legislation includes the strongest possible protections for consumers and is passed into law without further delays.”

Meta said it was working with Stop Scams UK, a cross industry fraud group, to prevent fraud and raise awareness.

A spokesman said: “We don’t want anyone to fall victim to these criminals which is why our platforms have systems to block scams, financial services advertisers now have to be FCA authorised and we run consumer awareness campaigns on how to spot fraudulent behaviour.

“People can also report this content in a few simple clicks and we work with the police to support their investigations.”