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Why did BEUC file a complaint against Meta, TikTok and Google under the Digital Services Act?

BEUC filed a complaint against Meta, TikTok and Google on 21 May 2026 with the European Commission and the competent national Digital Services Coordinators together with 29 members across 27 countries.

Under the Digital Services Act (DSA), Meta, TikTok and Google are required to have effective mechanisms in place to fight fraudulent ads and reduce the risks to consumers. However, our evidence gathering shows that Meta, TikTok and Google not only fail to pro-actively remove fraudulent ads but also do little when notified about such scams.  

This is a breach of the EU’s Digital Services Act and it is essential to hold Meta, TikTok and Google accountable. If they fail to address the financial scams circulating on their platforms, fraudsters will continue to reach millions of European consumers daily, leaving people at risk of losing hundreds to thousands of euros to fraud.

What is BEUC’s complaint against Meta, TikTok and Google based on?

BEUC’s complaint against Meta, TikTok and Google is based on large-scale evidence gathering conducted between December 2025 and March 2026 by BEUC and 13 consumer organisations. The findings show that financial scams remain widespread on Meta, TikTok, and Google, and that platforms systematically fail to take effective corrective actions. 
In total, we flagged 893 fraudulent ads across 13 countries that were active on either Meta, TikTok or Google.

In a nutshell, consumer groups found that:

  • Meta rejected nearly 43% of the submitted ads.

  • TikTok only removed 21% of the submitted ads. In 37% of the cases, TikTok claimed that the ad was removed before they could review it.

  • Google removed 60% of the submitted ads.

Consumer groups participating in the evidence-gathering were: Асоциация Активни потребители (Bulgaria), Arbeiterkammer (Austria), ASUFIN (Spain) and Federación de Consumidores y Usuarios – CECU (Spain), Consumentenbond (Netherlands), DECO (Portugal), Federacja Konsumentów (Poland), Forbrugerrådet Tænk (Denmark), Qendra Konsumatori shqiptar (Albania), Que Choisir Ensemble (France), Spoločnosť ochrany spotrebiteľov (S.O.S.) (Slovakia), Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband – vzbv (Germany), Zveza Potrošnikov Slovenije – ZPS (Slovenia) and BEUC (for Belgium). 

In addition, the following BEUC members have supported the action: ACR Malta (Malta), Asociatia Pro Consumatori – APC (Romania), Consumatori Italiani per l'Europa (CIE) (Italy), dTest (Czech Republic), EKPIZO and KEPKA (Greece), Fédération romande des consommateurs (Switzerland), Fogyasztóvédelmi Egyesületek Országos Szövetsége – FEOSZ (Hungary), Forbrukerrådet (Norway), Kypriakos Syndesmos Katanaloton (Cyprus), Neytendasamtökin - NS (Iceland), Organizacija na potrosuvacite na Makedonija – OPM (Macedonia), Sveriges Konsumenter (Sweden), Union Luxembourgeoise des Consommateurs – ULC (Luxembourg), Unija potrosaca Hrvatske (Croatia), and Vartotojų aljansas (Lithuania). 

Map of participating members with their logo
 

What is BEUC proposing in its complaint against Meta, TikTok and Google?

As a solution, BEUC, the European consumer organisation calls on the European Commission and national Digital Services Coordinators (DSCs) to investigate the measures taken by Meta, TikTok, and Google to mitigate systemic risks related to financial scam and require them to comply with the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Specifically, consumer organisations call on the European Commission and national Digital Services Coordinators (DSCs) to: 

  • Launch, or where applicable accelerate, investigations into Meta, TikTok, and Google's DSA compliance and the measures taken by these platforms to mitigate risks related to financial scams. 
  • Require Meta, TikTok, and Google to bring their practices into immediate compliance with the DSA. 
  • Impose fines and, where appropriate, periodic penalty payments in cases of continued non-compliance. 

Where Meta, TikTok and/or Google propose commitments to change their practices, the Commission should also ensure that interested third parties are given a meaningful opportunity to submit their views on those commitments.