Crypto Scam Ads forces Aussie Competition Watchdog to Investigate Meta

The announcement by Australia’s Consumer and Competition (ACCC) watchdog came just after Andrew Forrset, the billionaire businessman disclosed that he was taking legal action against Meta’s Facebook, for reportedly running and advertising crypto scam campaigns to users using his image and name. According to reports by CultCrunch, several prominent celebrities have also been employed to attract investors into fraudulent investment scams

The ACCC watchdog is looking into Meta, Facebook’s parent company for running a series of scam Crypto System ads on its platform. The ACCC maintains that Meta tolerated crypto scammers and bad actors to breach the Australian consumer law, extorting unsuspecting victims of thousands of dollars.

Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest, Australia’s richest man and chairman of the Fortescue Metals Group, filed a criminal case against Facebook, the social media giant ceased to curb prevent advertisement of scam crypto ads that starred his image. Facebook is alleged to be criminally irresponsible by not putting in place adequate measures to curb criminals from using its platform to run crypto scam. Apparently, in not  acting against these crypto scam ads, the social media giant breached Australia’s anti-money laundering laws. 

In Thursday’s comments, Rod Sims, the ACCC’s chair affirmed that even though there are some similarities between the two cases, the nvestigation led by ACCC is different and pertains to other questions of law. While Forrest’s case is related to a possible breach of the Australia’s Commonwealth Criminal Code, the agency will be evaluating if Meta has breached any code under Australian Consumer Law as they believe that Meta should do more to prevent, remove, and detect, prevent those types of misleading advertisements. 

Investments tied to cryptocurrencies are by far the biggest threat facing individual investors in 2022. In November last year, crypto scammers used Google to steal over $500,000 by manipulating online advertisements to target cryptocurrency users searching for digital currency wallets. The fraudsters bid on keywords in Google ads, luring cryptocurrency enthusiasts to counterfeit versions of the websites. Google, however, disclosed this to the news and stated that the fraud was carried out by malicious actors looking for ways to evade detection, and they promised that they would adjust their enforcement mechanisms to prevent a repeat of these kinds of scams. 

In the same vein as the Google ad scam, fraudulent actors created Facebook ads to carry out their phishing activities. Users of these social media apps believe that if it is an ad run by Facebook or on Facebook, then it surely has a degree of legitimacy, considering the period it takes for an advert to be approved. The recent scam ad featuring Andrew Forrest raises the question as to what kind of vetting process ads go through before they are approved. The billionaire’s lawsuit could be more bad news for the company, which is already facing a number of regulatory investigations and controversies across the globe. 

Facebook could claim safe harbor protection, which would mean that they are not responsible for what the users on their platform share, but it is still unclear how effective such a strategy will be as Australia attempts to wind down some of those protections. In 2021, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned that he was prepared to make social media companies like Twitter and Facebook are accountable for slanderous comments published by their users. 

Forrest disclosed that his actions are taken on behalf of the everyday Australians who have labour led through their lives to accumulate enough savings and to make sure that those savings are carted away by bad actors. He recognized that although his actions are specifically for Australians, the crypto scam is something that happens across the globe and that this is just a step, to ensure that social media companies become more accountable and tighten their advert censoring process.

Cryptocurrency investors and enthusiasts should not think that phishing schemes are just for email; they are everywhere. Not all cases are reported. Some cases are even swept under the rug or handled in private, but as seen in this article, you could be scammed by a Google ad or a Facebook ad. Be mindful of the website that you give access to your details, and you could apply extra caution by typing out the The announcement by Australia’s Consumer and Competition (ACCC) watchdog came just after Andrew Forrset, the billionaire businessman disclosed that he was taking legal action against Meta’s Facebook, for reportedly running and advertising crypto scam campaigns to users using his image and name. According to reports, several prominent celebrities have also been employed to attract investors into fraudulent investment scamswebsite address in full.