Meta · Wired
Meta did not respond to questions about whether the ads for “secret tax checks” are allowed under its policies
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CFA is seeking to recover damages and what it says are illegal profits from Meta, in addition to business reforms.
Key facts
- One Meta document from 2024 that Reuters cited estimated that the company would earn 10.1 percent of its revenue that year—around $16 billion—from ads that were scams or other types of prohibited
- To put that figure in perspective, the FBI estimated that in 2024, Americans lost $16 billion from all internet crimes
- In its complaint, CFA points to ads found in Meta’s ads library that CFA claims are types of well-known scams, including several that appear to target people by their birth year and tout $1,400
- In late 2025, on a set of internal Meta documents that detailed how the company dealt with fraudulent and prohibited user activity, including a May 2025 presentation that estimated that its platforms
Summary
On Tuesday, the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America filed a lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the way the social networking giant handles scammers on its platforms violates Washington, DC’s consumer protection laws. While many online scams involve direct outreach to victims by scammers (who are often themselves human trafficking victims trapped in scam compounds ), CFA’s lawsuit focuses on fraudulent advertising that CFA alleges Meta profited from and allowed to "proliferate on its platforms,” despite publicly promising that it takes cracking down on fraud and scams seriously. In its complaint, CFA points to ads found in Meta’s ads library that CFA claims are types of well-known scams, including several that appear to target people by their birth year and tout $1,400 checks, as well as others that advertise free government iPhones. Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro says, “These allegations misrepresent the reality of their work and they will fight them.