For one week in November, Facebook and Instagram showed ads promising a weekly return of 10% on investments. That equals more than 14,000% a year, a figure far outside real finance. The ads showed cash and cryptocurrency raining down on a man at his computer and asked viewers if they wanted the same results.
Those ads broke Meta’s own rules on get rich quick promotions. They ran anyway. According to figures Meta later shared, the ads reached more than 20,000 users across the United States, Europe, India and Brazil. They drew dozens of messages from people asking how to join.
The ads were created by a Reuters reporter testing Meta’s systems. The reporter used their real name and made clear they wanted to run banned cryptocurrency promotions. Reuters says the test had no aim of taking money from anyone and followed its internal rules.
The ads passed review and went live within minutes. After four days, they had more than 100 clicks. Messages came through Facebook Messenger and a linked website, including one from a man in North Carolina who said he saw the ad while searching for work overnight.
Who Helped Place The Ads?
To run the ads, the reporter contacted agencies listed in Meta’s own Partner Directory. Meta describes these firms as trusted experts and badged partners. Reuters found that certain agencies openly market help with ads that break Meta’s rules.
One agency, Vietnam based Bluefocus, promoted online tutorials such as “How to Advertise Illegal Products on Facebook”. Its website claimed a close working relationship with Meta. Reuters says Bluefocus later denied running banned ads, though a WhatsApp message from an official account offered $500 to help create fake US accounts.
Other resellers contacted by Reuters also agreed to help. For a signup fee of $30 or less and a higher commission, they set up ad accounts within hours. Payment was requested in cryptocurrency. None refused after being told the ads would break the rules.
Each reseller account linked back to large Chinese agencies that sit near the heart of Meta’s ad sales in China. Meta relies on 11 such partners, even though Facebook and Instagram are blocked for users in China.
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How Much Money Does Meta Make From Scam Ads?
A separate Reuters investigation based on internal Meta documents shows the scale of the business. Late last year, Meta projected that about 10% of its annual revenue, roughly $16 billion, would come from scam ads and promotions for banned goods.
Another document from December 2024 estimates that users see about 15 billion higher risk scam ads every day across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Those ads alone bring in around $7 billion a year, according to Meta’s own figures.
The documents say Meta often lets suspected scammers keep advertising unless its systems reach 95% certainty of fraud. If the certainty level sits lower, Meta charges higher ad prices as a penalty instead of blocking the advertiser.
Why Do Users See More Scams After Clicking Once?
Meta’s ad system personalises what people see. Internal papers reviewed by Reuters say that users who click on scam ads are likely to see more of them afterwards, because the system reads that interest as a signal.
In Britain, a regulator found Meta platforms were linked to 54% of all payments related scam losses in 2023. That was more than double all other social platforms combined. In the United States, internal Meta research estimated that its platforms played a role in one third of successful scams.
Reuters also found gaps in how Meta defines scams. Police in Singapore shared 146 examples of fraud. Meta decided only 23% broke its written rules, even though the rest involved offers such as fake ticket sales and extreme discounts.
What Does Meta Say About This?
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters that the internal estimates give a distorted picture. He said the 10% figure was rough and counted many legitimate ads. He did not give an updated number.
Stone said Meta removed more than 134 million scam ads in 2025 so far and that user reports of scam ads went down 58% over 18 months. He also said Meta fights fraud because users and advertisers do not want it.
The documents show Meta expects fines of up to $1 billion linked to scam ads. Even so, another internal paper says the money earned from higher risk scam ads over six months, about $3.5 billion, exceeds the likely cost of settlements.
Internal strategy papers show Meta intends to bring scam related revenue down gradually. The target is to move from about 10.1% of revenue in 2024 to 7.3% by the end of 2025, then lower again in later years.
Regulators in the US and UK are asking more questions, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Meta over financial scam ads, according to the Reuters documents.
