Dutch banks have called on social media companies to more to combat fraud after customers in the Netherlands lost nearly €26 million to bank helpdesk fraud last year.

The cost of online scams increased by almost 20% in the last year, with around 70% starting on social media, the banking association NVB said on Tuesday.

It said Meta, TikTok and Google needed to do more to protect users. “Without the help of big tech and social media companies, further combating online fraud remains a losing battle,” chair Medy van der Laan said.

Although the amount lost to bank helpdesk fraud – in which a caller posing as a bank employee persuades a customer to move money to a “safe” account – increased, the number of victims fell 14% to just under 5,900.

The banks attribute the trend to lower daily transfer limits and new ways for customers to check whether a call from the bank is genuine.

The NVB said customers appeared to be becoming more vigilant about suspicious emails, app and text messages. However, phishing losses rose by €1.8 million to nearly €2.6 million.

Spotlight on Meta

Van der Laan pointed to a recent finding by Britain’s financial regulator that more than 1,000 illegal advertisements circulated on Meta platforms – Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – in a single week. Police said separately that half of all webshop fraud reports they investigate originate on Meta platforms.

Marco Doeland, head of security at the NVB, told the Financieele Dagblad that the platforms were absent from anti-fraud working groups that include the police, telecoms operators and consumer organisations.

Meta said it took down 159 million fraudulent advertisements and 10.9 million criminal accounts in 2025 and pointed to a national working group it sits on alongside the justice ministry, banks and the consumer hotline Fraudehelpdesk.

TikTok said it removes 97.7% of illegal content before any user reports it. Google did not respond to the FD.

Transfer limits

Bank helpdesk fraud peaked in 2022 at over €50 million and has since been roughly halved by tighter transfer limits and customer-awareness campaigns. The banks reimbursed slightly more than 45% of helpdesk fraud losses in 2025 as a goodwill payment.

The renewed appeal to the platform comes in the wake of recent large-scale data leaks at telecoms firm Odido, which has 6.2 million customers, and cosmetics chain Rituals.

Stolen contact details and, in Odido’s case, bank account numbers, are the raw material that feeds social-media scams. Banks recoup fraud costs through higher account fees, which rose more than 10% last year.