The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) has filed a class-action complaint in Superior Court in Washington, D.C., accusing Meta Platforms of profiting from advertising linked to scams and of misrepresenting its work to protect users from such activities. The complaint, filed Tuesday, requests a jury trial and seeks damages for affected local consumers.
According to the CFA filing, internal company figures show the scale of the issue on Meta's platforms. Meta's own 2024 estimates are cited as indicating the company displayed 15 billion "higher risk" scam ads per day and earned an annualized $7 billion from those ads. The complaint further cites internal company documents showing a 2024 internal projection that roughly 10% of Meta's overall annual revenue - or about $16 billion - would come from running ads for scams and prohibited goods.
The complaint alleges that Meta has adopted policies and taken actions that, in the CFA's view, prioritized company revenue over user safety. "Meta has knowingly taken steps and adopted policies that pad its bottom line at the expense of its users' safety and well-being," the filing states.
As part of its assertions, the CFA points to a pattern the group describes as public downplaying of the risks posed by scams on Meta's platforms, creating what the complaint calls a false impression of safety for users. The complaint also raises concerns about the company's relationships with certain business partners that resell advertising through so-called agency accounts. The CFA alleges that Meta tolerated widespread scam-ad activity by those partners, including resellers located in China, and that the company continued to accept ads through a system the complaint says facilitated fraudulent activity.
Meta responded to the legal action with a statement saying that the allegations misrepresent the reality of the company's work and that it will contest them. The company also pointed to a recent announcement in which it said it was expanding advertiser-verification efforts and had begun prohibiting financial services-related ads from directing users to private messaging services - a tactic commonly used by financial scammers.
The complaint highlights the tension between advertising revenue streams and platform safety controls, and it requests that a jury determine damages for consumers identified in the filing. The CFA's legal action includes allegations about the scale of scam advertising activity, a claim that Meta downplayed the risk to users, and assertions about the role of resellers and agency accounts in enabling the distribution of problematic ads.
The filing reiterates the CFA's view that Meta's practices have allowed substantial volumes of higher-risk advertising to reach users while the company profited from that activity. The complaint's factual claims rest on internal figures and projections that the CFA included to quantify the prevalence of such ads and their contribution to Meta's ad revenue.
Clear summary: The Consumer Federation of America has filed a class-action complaint in D.C. alleging Meta profited from scam-related advertising, misled users about the scope of the problem and continued to accept ads through reseller channels that the CFA says enabled fraudulent activity. The suit seeks a jury trial and damages for local consumers and cites internal Meta estimates about daily high-risk scam ads and associated revenue.