Despite vows to block them, over 1,000 illegal financial ads were shown across Meta’s platforms in the UK
An investigation into Meta has found it repeatedly failed to prevent fraudulent and illegal ads for high-risk financial products from appearing on its platforms in the UK.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) identified 1,052 ads in a one-week period in November 2025, posted on Meta’s platforms promoting complex financial instruments and currency trading – without authorisation from the regulator.
Over half of these ads came from unauthorised advertisers, which had already been flagged to Meta, Reuters reported.
This follows the revelation that Meta made approximately $16bn from ads promoting scams or banned goods, amounting to roughly 10% of its 2024 ad revenues.
Internal documents seen by news organisations revealed that Meta only banned ads with an over 95% fraud score – and platforms actually make more money from ads it believes to be scams, charging a higher ad rate as a penalty.
The FCA has urged Meta to do more to protect users. A spokesperson told Reuters: “Fraud is the most common crime in the UK [,] with over half of some scams originating on their platforms, it’s vital Meta steps up and uses its tools to protect users from scam content.”.
Despite regularly engaging with the tech giant, the FCA is yet to see a material difference in the firm’s approach, and has confirmed it will still test Meta’s monitoring and control systems.
A small number of ‘repeat offenders’ were found to be responsible for the majority of the illegal ads discovered.
The Online Safety Act, introduced in March 2025 gives regulators the ability to fine social media companies for running illegal user-generated content, but a grace period means that the FCA cannot enforce these provisions until 2027.
As well as putting consumers at risk of fraud and pig-butchering scams, these illegal ads mean that legitimate advertisers are competing with a high number of too-good-to-be-true deals, and often are more cautious when viewing ads thanks to the high volume of ads on the platforms.
Meta has already come under scrutiny for allegedly risking user safety to fuel algorithms and engagement in order to compete with other social media platforms like TikTok. And its controversial ‘pay or consent’ ad model has come under fire from the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) for failing to comply with EU laws.
