Social media giant Meta has been profiting from hundreds of Facebook scam advertisements preying on Australians experiencing financial hardship, leaving taxpayers and charities to foot the bill. Source: The Age.
In the cruel swindles, scammers take out ads impersonating well-known Australian charities and not-for-profit organisations, including Catholic charities Good Shepherd and the St Vincent de Paul Society, as well as the Salvation Army, Brotherhood of St Laurence, Anglicare and the Smith Family.
The fraudulent ads purport to offer no-interest loans to people with low incomes facing unexpected costs, such as replacing a broken fridge, car repairs so they can get to work, or bond money to secure a rental property.
In reality, they trick Australians into handing over sensitive personal details that allow scammers to crack into their myGov accounts, redirect their Centrelink payments and steal their identities.
In some instances, stolen Centrelink payments have been reissued to victims, meaning Australian taxpayers are also bearing the cost of Meta’s failure to screen out the scam ads.
Federal Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones, whose government recently introduced laws that could force social media companies to pay compensation to scam victims, said Meta had the ability to remove the ads.
“Meta should be removing this content immediately,” Mr Jones said. “They should be prioritising this to keep their network safe.”
Almost 800 ads using the term NILS, or no-interest loan scheme, were served up to Australians using Meta’s platforms between August 21 and October 16 last year, analysis by The Age found.
The ads continued even after the National Anti-Scam Centre issued a public warning about the fake financial assistance schemes.
Many of the scam ads originate from Facebook pages managed in Nigeria. These pages only have a few likes and followers and show content copied and pasted from legitimate charity groups.
Meta did not respond to questions, other than noting it was investigating the ads flagged by The Age.
FULL STORY
‘I can’t buy food for my children’: Facebook profits from charity scams costing taxpayers (By Aisha Dow, The Age)
