Facebook owner Meta must do more to prevent scams on its platform – and the UK Government must do more to hold the company to account, according to the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI).
Leaked internal documents from Meta indicate that the US-based tech giant, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, raked in $16bn in revenue from scam adverts proliferating on its platforms worldwide in 2024, which equates to roughly 10% of its global revenue.
During the same period, UK consumers lost an estimated £28m to scam adverts posted on Facebook and £11m to scam adverts on Instagram, according to Action Fraud.
Criminal gangs, including Organised Crime Groups, are capitalising on public trust in many of Meta’s brands, including Facebook, and using this to exploit consumers. In exchange, Meta, and Facebook are being complicit by raking in revenue through convincing adverts from third-parties that are used to rip off UK consumers and lining the pockets of criminals.
The UK’s Online Safety Act requires that tech companies such as Meta take steps to prevent users from encountering fraudulent adverts on their platforms, and act swiftly to take down content when they are alerted that it is fraudulent. However, according to company documents revealed by a Reuters investigation, Meta knowingly hosts adverts that present a high likelihood of being fraudulent, and charges advertisers a premium for hosting such content. According to that investigation, in 2024 Meta forecast that 10% of its profits would come from scam adverts.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) also found that during a single week in November 2025, more than a thousand adverts for currency trading and high-risk financial products were posted on Meta’s platforms by advertisers not authorised to promote them. Despite making a commitment not to run unauthorised adverts for high-risk financial products in the UK, the company repeatedly failed to do so, with 56% of adverts being posted by advertisers the FCA had already flagged to Meta.
According to Meta’s own estimates, its social media sites display 15 billion scam adverts every day globally. A recent lawsuit brought by Santa Clara County in California alleges that Meta has contributed to a worldwide ‘epidemic of fraud’ by knowingly hosting scam adverts, allowing middlemen to sell accounts to place scam ads, and targeting such ads at users who had clicked on similar content in the past. There has as yet been no similar action taken against the company in the UK.
CTSI is calling for:
- Meaningful penalties for social media platforms which enable scams and fraudulent advertising
- Social media platforms which enable scams and fraudulent advertising to be held accountable financially
- Social media platforms to allocate more resources to removing fraudulent, illegal and misleading advertising and other content from their sites, and to do more to prevent such content being posted in the first place
- Social media platforms to immediately remove content that has been flagged as fraudulent by Trading Standards and other enforcers and regulators
John Herriman, Chief Executive of CTSI, commented: “Meta and its platforms, including Facebook, sit at the top of a pyramid of fraudulent adverts which impact the lives of people in the UK and across the world every day. The profits they make from criminal activities is eye-watering.
“The Government is taking action against Serious and Organised Crime on the high street, so must now do more to ensure that Meta and other social media companies are held accountable for the misery caused by the illegal activities enabled by their platforms, and that meaningful financial penalties are applied to discourage them from enabling this epidemic of fraud.
“Every day Trading Standards teams across the UK see the effects of social media scams on people’s quality of life, from investment fraud to romance scams. The fact that Meta capitalises on this by charging a premium for adverts it knows are highly likely to be fraudulent speaks volumes about its priorities and the attitude it has towards its users.
“The Online Safety Act presents an opportunity for Government and regulators to level the playing field for legitimate businesses by taking social media companies to task for their failings to protect their users and to start reversing the record levels of consumer detriment UK consumers are facing. It is time that the Government picks a side and decides who they are acting on behalf of and put legislation in place to end this menace.”
Katherine Hart, CTSI Lead Officer for Doorstep Crime, Scams and Consumer Vulnerability, said: “I have seen an array of complaints that originate from social media platforms such as Meta. Consumers are misled by adverts for shops or items that don’t exist, products that are unsafe and illegal, and also duped into passing on financial details which makes them vulnerable to fraud.
“It is frustrating that despite reporting these to Meta the adverts keep appearing time and time again. Meta has a duty to ensure that the sites it hosts are accurate and do not mislead customers. High street shops could never advertise products like that without legal consequences and there should be no difference for an online enabler.
“There needs to be better protection for consumers and consequences for online platforms which host these adverts, and who appear to be profiting from consumers’ misery.”
Louise Baxter MBE, CTSI Lead Officer for Scams and Consumer Education, said: “Fraud has become a volume crime at an industrial scale, and far too often the burden is being placed on victims to spot increasingly sophisticated scams rather than on the platforms enabling them. We cannot continue with a system where consumers are blamed for being deceived when they are facing a relentless stream of highly targeted, sophisticated fraud.
“What we are seeing is cognitive overwhelm, people are bombarded with adverts, messages and content every day, making it incredibly difficult to distinguish what is genuine and what is not. Criminals exploit this, alongside personal circumstances such as financial pressure, which can significantly increase susceptibility to scams.
“If we are serious about protecting people, we must shift upstream and stop fraud at source. That means preventing scam adverts and content from reaching consumers in the first place, rather than relying on individuals to defend themselves after harm has already occurred. By reducing exposure, we not only protect the public but also ease the emotional and financial toll that scams inflict on individuals, families and communities.
“Blame must sit where responsibility lies, those who enable and profit from the spread of fraudulent content and it is time we matched that with decisive action to better safeguard consumers.”
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