The rise of scam ads has become the fastest-growing driver of distrust in UK advertising and consumers believe online platforms “could be doing more” to tackle the problem.
Those findings from industry think tank Credos were a key talking point at last week’s Lead conference, where Rima Amin, a Meta executive involved in online security, admitted that 3% to 4% of its revenues “might” be coming from scam ads globally, and Jonathan Allan, the interim chief executive of Channel 4, said he thought it was “baffling” that some platforms have allowed the problem to persist.
The growth in artificial intelligence and deep fakes is adding to consumers’ fears around scam and “suspicious” ads, according to Dan Wilks, director of Credos, who unveiled the results of the Credos Trust Tracker survey at the conference in London.
“I cannot tell you how many people – pretty much everybody that we spoke to – had examples of fake Martin Lewises [based on the Money Saving Expert founder] or Keir Starmer selling crypto [currency]. It was top of mind for pretty much everyone we spoke to,” Wilks said.
Credos found that public trust in advertising hit a five-year high in 2025, as the industry has made progress in some areas such as bombardment, yet Wilks described a nuanced picture as scam ads were the “big mover” in terms of driving distrust.
“17% of people claim to have been scammed by an ad in 2025,” he said, citing two areas of concern: beauty products “that are often based on unverified claims and play upon insecurities”; and “both genuine and scam investment schemes and crypto ads”.
He warned: “The role of platforms was seen as the most important [by consumers] and there was a perception that they could be doing more than they currently are [to crack down on scam ads].”
Allan, who spoke on behalf of public service broadcasters on a panel after the Credos presentation, received applause when he told the audience: “Scam ads are the most egregious problem that we’ve got [as an industry] and I find it baffling that platforms are allowing those kind of ads to be still shown and I think it’s something that we’ve got to just kill.”
Kate Alessi, the UK managing director of Google, speaking on the same panel, agreed with Allan. “You are right. We need to stop scam ads. It’s critically important,” she said.
Alessi noted Google has been introducing safeguards, including using “AI tools to enable us to prevent scam ads before they even show up on the platform”.
Only 70% of advertisers were verified on Meta in 2025
Amin, who is a security policy manager in community defence at Meta, faced questions about a Reuters news story, which reported how the social media giant had estimated 10% of its revenues came from scam ads and other ads for banned goods in 2024, according to internal documents.
She said the 10% figure was “not accurate”. Meta’s calculation was an “overestimate” because it included some ads that were “suspicious” but “not enough to determine if it was scammed or real” and also some ads from “legitimate businesses” that “were doing things that scammers copied”, such as offering deep price discounts, Amin explained.
“For what we call high-risk scams, it might be – and I say might because this is not a validated number, it’s not something that we measure – it might be around 3% to 4%,” she said, adding that Meta had expected the proportion of scam ads to drop in 2025.
Amin admitted 3% was “higher than we would like”. Hypothetically, that could equate to more thanUS $5 billion a year, based on Meta’s global turnover.
However, she said Meta has been making some improvements in areas such as verification of advertisers, which has risen from 55% in 2024 to 70% last year, with the aim being to reach 90% this year. The number of user reports of scams has also dropped more than 50% since mid-2024, according to Meta.
Amin acknowledged its immediate target was “not 100%”, but maintained there are some advertisers “who may not be able to have ID verification” in some parts of the world and for other reasons.
She said there was “no single tool” that can “fix” scam ads and that Meta is working closely with regulators and law enforcement, such as the National Crime Agency in the UK and other bodies around the world to combat what is a “very, very persistent” problem.
Fraudsters “using networks which legitimate advertising uses”
The “global nature” of online fraud is a major issue, according to Nick Sharp, the deputy director for fraud threat leadership at the National Economic Crime Centre, part of the NCA, who also spoke at Lead.
He said “fraudsters are increasingly exploiting online advertising to reach victims” and “they are using the very networks which legitimate advertising uses”.
Sharp described an ecosystem where criminals are using a variety of methods, including using affiliate networks to create advertiser accounts and bogus ads as well as building fraudulent websites and installing “malware” on users’ devices.
There are “guns for hire” on the dark web, who are offering “maladvertising as a service," he said.
“Each part of the chain can be outsourced to an individual in a different jurisdiction. It makes it very hard to identify [fraudsters] but they do leave a trace – they leave signals behind, which we can use to connect ads and advertisers and gain visibility of the larger picture.”
He added: “It is very, very common to use the ad to bring the victim in and then [the fraudsters] take them off-platform and the fraud takes place out of sight from any of us.”
There were 17,000 reports of crypto fraud in the UK in 2025, Sharp said, and the likely figure of affected people is likely to be closer to 170,000, on the basis that only 10% report such crimes to the police.
Some frauds involve very large sums, according to Sharp, who cited two international cases from between 2021 and 2025. One malicious campaign by an affiliate marketer generated US$247 million from 27,000 people in 30 countries and a second campaign involved defrauding $35m from 6000 people. “This stuff does real harm,” he said.
Sharp said educating consumers and businesses was essential and urged the ad industry to work more closely with the NCA and other law enforcement and regulatory bodies “in helping us”, before, during and after a campaign.
“Make sure you have a robust ‘Know Your Customer’ system,” he said, noting ID verification is “very common in the financial sector but probably less so across the advertising industry”.
He said there were practical steps that the ad industry can take. For example, the Financial Conduct Authority has published an open-source list of approved financial services companies, which means it can be easy to identify a company that is “not legitimate”.
Law enforcement is having some impact, Sharp added, citing a UK case where “someone had done little more than direct users from a fake advert to a fraudulent website” and received a three-year conviction.
Advertising companies should also “use monitoring to pick up any patterns and suspicious signals or behaviour” because it can be an “opportunity to uncover connected campaigns”.
It is key “to respond quickly when victims spot [scam] ads” and to “tell law enforcement," according to Sharp, who warned: “Fraudsters are adapting to anti-fraud controls almost as quickly as we can create them collectively.”
Source: Campaign UK
