As losses to online investment scams skyrocket during the pandemic, Australia’s financial services watchdog has called for a crackdown on investment scam ads run by Google and Facebook.
Australians lost an estimated $140 million to sophisticated, online investment scams last year, according to the Financial Services Council (FSC). The FSC has called for the introduction of a mandatory code of conduct to regulate online advertising via technology giants Facebook and Google, to better protect the public from financial scams
Soaring losses to financial scams is an “urgent wake-up call that action is required to protect consumers,” said FSC chief executive Blake Briggs, in response to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Digital Platform Services enquiry, examining the market power of the tech giants.
“Digital platforms must take action against scammers who purport to offer reputable investment options and target people through social media advertisements, paid search engine results and messenger applications,” Briggs said.
In March, the ACCC launched legal action against Facebook’s parent company Meta over a series of cryptocurrency scam ads.
The ACCC claimed that the ads promoted investment in crypto or money-making schemes which were actually scams. They gave the misleading impression of being associated with or endorsed by public figures including David Koch, Dick Smith, Andrew Forrest and Mike…
