Google, Meta, TikTok to face massive EU fines over financial scam ads

Google, Meta and TikTok are under fire as EU consumer groups filed complaints against these major tech platforms, allegedly failing to protect users from financial fraud happening on their platforms.

The groups including the European Consumer Organisation and 29 of its members in 27 European countries submitted the complaints to the EU Commission under Digital Services Act (DSA).

Under the DSA, the EU also makes these tech platforms responsible to do more to tackle the growing negative impacts of social media and illegal content.

BEUC Director General Agustín Reyna ​said in a statement, "Meta, TikTok and Google not only fail to pro-actively remove fraudulent ads but also do little when ​being notified about such scams,"

"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," he said.

The groups also called for initiating investigation into these companies to verify whether they were complying with the rules or not. In the case of any breach, they demanded to impose fines.

Under DSA, the fines can reach as much as 6 percent of a company’s global annual turnover.

According to these consumer groups, they found around 900 ads suspected of violating EU laws between December, 2025 and March, 2026. On the contrary, the platforms removed only 27 percent of ads and 52 percent of reports were either ignored or rejected.