European consumers denounce Facebook, TikTok and Google for the promotion of financial frauds
Associations from 13 countries detect nearly 900 illegal ads and lament the platforms' passivity in removing them
BarcelonaNew crusade by European consumers against tech giants. This Thursday, the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC, for its English acronym), together with 29 associations from the 27 member states of the European Union, has denounced Meta (the parent company of Facebook, TikTok and Google) to the European Commission and national authorities. The reason is having allowed the proliferation of fraudulent financial advertisements on its platforms and having ignored calls to remove them, contravening the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA, for its English acronym). contravening the Digital Services Act (DSA, for its English acronym) of the Union.
The complaints stem from an investigation that consumer associations from 13 countries carried out between December 2025 and March 2026. In just four months, the organizations detected nearly 900 advertisements suspected of infringing European legislation. Despite the warnings passed on to the platforms, a large majority of cases were ignored.
Of the total, the three companies denounced only removed 27% of the advertisements, while the rest of the alerts were rejected or, directly, ignored. According to BEUC's calculations, active fraudulent advertisements have reached more than 200 million European consumers each month, a fact that "puts new economic losses at risk".
"The investigation reveals alarming discrepancies between the actions these platforms claim and the reality of what is happening," laments BEUC's Director General, Agustín Reyna, who also criticizes the economic profit that companies continue to extract from advertisements. For example, Meta continues to receive a 10% commission on the revenue of the denounced advertisers who maintain fraudulent publications active.
More power to the states
In the statement published this Thursday, the Spanish associations that are part of the complaint –Asufin and Cecu– also emphasize the little power that state regulators currently have to combat these bad practices.
Since January 2024, the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has been responsible for ensuring compliance with the digital services law in the State. Despite this formal designation, the organizations point out that a Spanish law has not yet been approved that empowers the CNMC "with real competencies" for supervision, investigation, and sanctioning capacity.
In this regard, Asufin and Cecu urge the Spanish government to resolve this situation "as soon as possible" –the country has been failing to meet the deadlines set by Brussels for two years– so that the body enjoys "legal powers" to access data and algorithms, order inspections, and, above all, impose fines of up to 6% of the global turnover of large platforms.
