Reports

Consumers spend more time online and increasingly rely on digital payment services in their daily lives. As their digital presence grows, so do fraudulent practices, with online advertising emerging as a major vector for scams. Whether watching videos, following friends, scrolling or reading the news, consumers are routinely exposed to increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes, leading not only to financial harm – i.e. in 2024, consumers suffered financial losses up to EUR 4.2 billion – but also to a loss of trust in digital and financial markets.

BEUC, The European Consumer Organisation, together with 13 consumer groups from 13 countries (Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the Netherlands), conducted an evidence-gathering to document the widespread financial scams on Meta, TikTok and Google as well as the limited corrective measures platforms take to prevent their circulation. The screenshots were taken between December 2025 and March 2026. Consumer groups collected 893 examples. This annex does not intend to provide the exhaustive list of ads, but highlights key examples collected per organisation.