Westpac demands Meta does more to combat Facebook-based scammers

Westpac has identified groups openly offering on Facebook to sell stolen bank login information but, despite reporting the pages to Meta, nothing has been done.

Westpac says eliminating investment scams on Facebook would cut by 50 per cent the value stolen from clients. Picture: Getty Images

Banking major Westpac wants social media giants to require companies advertising financial products to show they are licensed,and says scams and frauds repeatedly reappear and that attempts to weed them out are weak.

Westpac customer and corporate services group executive Carolyn McCann said the bank had sounded out social media giant Meta over adopting an Australian Financial Services Licence requirement for its advertisers, due to concerns many investment scams targeting the bank’s customers were flowing from social media platforms.

Ms McCann said more than 40 per cent of scams originated on social media platforms,and more than half of all customer losses resulted from fake investment advertisements.

She said she had raised the bank’s concerns with Meta over the scams during a recent meeting with the social media platform.

Ms McCann said Meta had been “receptive”, but so far no moves had been made to impose more stringent checks on advertisers on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.Meta announced in June it would for the first time require advertisers to provide a verified phone number before publishing advertisements on its platforms.

But many in the financial sector said much more could be done to deal with scams and frauds.

“We’re just saying, if we could eliminate investment scams on Facebook we would eliminate 50 per cent by value the scams we’re seeing,” Ms McCann said.

Westpac has sent a number of letters in recent months to Meta highlighting the prevalence.

Ms McCann’s meeting with Meta only came after The Australian revealed the social media giant had ignored her recent attempts to reach out to it.

She said the bank often saw repeated scams posted on Facebook targeting its customers. The bank was concerned that scams or criminal networks it identified remained online, despite reporting the profiles and pages.

Westpac group executive, customer and corporate relations Carolyn McCann. Picture: Martin Ollman

The Australian is aware of a Facebook page openly offering the sale of stolen banking details to criminal networks that Westpac has attempted to have removed.

The page is still online. Facebook pages for scams also continue online, despite websites being taken down through a cross-industry scheme aimed to stamp out financial crime.

There are alleged criminal groups who have placed ads on Facebook offering the sale of bonds in financial institutions – including Commonwealth Bank – from a business which claims to operate from a Melbourne office occupied by rival lender NAB.

However, this publication has confirmed no such company operates from the office building and the CBA bonds touted by this alleged criminal group do not exist.

“We see scams of this nature all the time, it might be investment bonds or prospectuses, they change one brand to another and move quickly, so the best way to combat them is a ‘know your advertiser’ rule,” Ms McCann said.

Banks require customers to hand over information to verify their identities, in a bid to ensure they are legitimately opening and transacting through the systems.

Westpac recently announced it was hiring an extra 50 staff for its fraud and scam operations team, as well as rolling out new programs to allow customers to report scams, fraud, or mistaken payments.

Separately, ANZ Australia retail group executive Maile Carnegie said almost 40per cent of scam losses affecting his bank’s customers originated from social media.Ms Carnegie said Facebook was a key platform for scams, and that Meta could do more to combat criminal actors using the site.

She said ANZ had raised concerns with Meta, but noted given the immense size of the social media company versus the comparatively small size of Australia’s banking majors on a global stage, she thought it was unlikely Meta would “necessarily listen to a domestic bank in Australia” on the issue.

Federal Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said he had significant concerns about Meta, and that it was “one of the biggest advertisers of criminal scams in the world”.

“They make billions in profit from Australians every year and they could use just a fraction of that to rid their platform of scams,” he said. “Meta need to seriously lift their game.” The Albanese government has moved to target poorly behaved social media companies in recent months, unveiling new laws recently that would impose $50m fines on the platforms if they fail to prevent scams and frauds.

A Meta spokesman said the company “doesn’t want scams on its platforms”.

“We continue to invest in teams and technology to detect and stop them,” he said.

The spokesman said the company had recently announced plans to test facial recognition technology “to identify and stop celeb-bait scams”, this comes after several high profile Australians launched legal action over scams purporting to be endorsed by the likes of Dick Smith or the former boss of the ASX.

Meta said it had expanded its partnership with the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange. “We continue to collaborate with numerous industry partners including the banks, the government and law enforcement on this important issue,” he said.