Meta Internal Files Suggest Up To $16 Billion Revenue From Scam Ads: Report

Meta is reportedly earning billions from running fraudulent advertisements across Facebook and Instagram, according to a report. The US tech giant projected that nearly 10% of its annual revenue, around $16 billion, in 2024 came from advertisements linked to scams and banned goods, Reuters reported, citing internal company documents.

The documents indicate that for at least three years, Meta failed to detect and block a surge of fraudulent ads across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, exposing users to fake investment schemes, illegal online casinos and prohibited medical products.

One document showed Meta estimated that users were shown about 15 billion “higher risk” scam advertisements every day in December 2024. Another document indicated Meta earns around $7 billion in annualised revenue every year from this category alone, the report added.

As per the Reuters report, Meta’s systems flagged many of the ads as suspicious. However, the company only bans advertisers if its automated tools are at least 95% certain they are committing fraud. Where the likelihood of fraud is lower, Meta instead charges those advertisers higher prices, described in the documents as “penalty bids.” The goal was to disincentivise suspect advertisers by making scam campaigns more expensive to run.

Documents also reveal that users who click on scam ads end up being served more of them because of Meta’s ad-personalisation systems.

In a statement to Reuters, Meta spokesman Andy Stone claimed that the documents “present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams.” He added that the internal estimate that Meta would earn 10.1% of its 2024 revenue from prohibited ads was “rough and overly-inclusive” and that the true figure was lower because the estimate included “many” legitimate advertisements. Stone added, “We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it and we don’t want it either.”

Stone also said, “Over the past 18 months, we have reduced user reports of scam ads globally by 58 percent and, so far in 2025, we’ve removed more than 134 million pieces of scam ad content.”

According to the news agency, Meta is expecting to reduce fraudulent ads in certain markets by up to 50%. "We have large goals to reduce ad scams in 2025," said a 2024 document, the report added.

However, documents indicate that Meta’s products have become tools for the proliferation of the global fraud economy. Company’s platforms were involved in a third of all successful scams in the United States, a May 2025 presentation by the company’s safety staff revealed, the news agency added.