Meta Sued by Australian Ombudsman For Fraudulent Celebrity Crypto Ads

Consumer watchdog in Australia has filed a case against Meta (formerly Facebook), for engaging in deceptive, false, and misleading conduct by publishing fraud ads.
Ads which promoted crypto investments or money-making schemes, were likely to mislead FB crowd base into believing it is real.
Allegedly, Meta already knew that celebrity endorsement digital assets fraudulent ads were being showed on social media platform.

ACCC Goes After Meta

Australian consumer watchdog has filed a case against FB owner, Meta, stating that social media mammoth was engaged in deceptive, false, and misleading conduct by issuing a fraudulent ads featuring iconic Australian public figures.

ACCC claims that Meta already knew that they are offering misleading content for FB users.

ACCC chairman, Rod Sims, stated that, this case’s essence is that Meta is accountable for all these advertisements published on platform.

Advertisements, which promoted investments in digital assets or money-making schemes, would probably mislead FB users into thinking that those schemes were linked with prominent personalities featured in those ads.

Celebrities in those ads involved, NSW premier, Mike Braid, TV presenter David Koch and businessman Dick Smith.

These schemes were m\nothing more than frauds, and folks featured in advertisements had never given their approval or endorsed them.

Advertisements had links that took FB users to a false media article which included quotes credited to celebrities featured in an ad endorsing a digital asset or money making scheme.

Folks were invited to sign up and were frequently contacted by fraudsters who utilized high-pressure methods, like constant phone calls, for convincing users to deposit funds into false schemes.

Rod Sims said that, it is a core element of Meta’s business to allow advertisers to aim towards users who would probably click on link (Clickbait) in an advertisement to visit a landing page, utilizing FB algorithms. Those visits to landing pages from ads create a prominent revenue for FB.

All Happened In Front Of Meta

Allegedly, Meta already knew that what was happening and celebrity endorsement crypto scam advertisements were being exhibited on FB, but did not take enough measures to address problems.

Celebrity endorsement digital asset fraudulent ads were still being exhibited on FB, even after public figures all across the globe complained that their images and titles are being utilized by organization into advertisements without their consent.

Rod Sims stated that, meta should be working more to detect and then eliminate misleading or false advertisements on Facebook, to prevent customers from falling victims to such deceptive frauds. Meta is still unresponsive to lawsuits.

Sims stated that, Meta did not took enough steps to eliminate false ads attributing public figures, even after those celebrity complaints.

Sims added that, in a stunning example, we are aware of a customer who received a damage of $650,000, thanks to these frauds being falsely advertised as an opportunity for investment on Facebook, which is disgraceful.

A data displayed that, during 2021, customers reported damages of $99 Million, to digital asset investment frauds.