Meta blocks 23K Facebook accounts targeting Indian users in investment scams | Technology News
Meta has removed over 23,000 Facebook Pages and Accounts linked to scam networks that primarily targeted users in India and Brazil.
“The scammers used deepfakes, among other techniques, falsely depicting popular personal finance content creators, cricket players and business figures in Brazil and India, endorsing scam investment apps and gambling websites,” Meta said in a press release on Wednesday, May 7. The action against the scam Facebook Pages and Accounts was taken two months ago.
Victims who fell for the scam were redirected by scammers to messaging apps for “investment advice”. In some cases, the victims were redirected to fake websites that looked like the Google Play Store page. They were then asked to download gambling apps from the fake sites.
“Investment scams typically lure people into investing in fake or non-existent opportunities—often promising quick and easy returns on assets like cryptocurrency, real estate, or shares. Scammers reach out through social media, emails, or calls offering “exclusive” investment opportunities or access to coaching groups” Meta said.
Payment scams that involve scammers posing as legitimate sellers on platforms like Facebook Marketplace were also flagged by the tech giant. In overpayment or refund scams, the fraudsters “overpay for an item they’ve purchased online and request a partial refund.” Later, they reverse the original payment and make away with both amounts, Meta said.
In response to these scams, Meta said it has taken measures such as displaying warnings to users whenever there are requests or offers from scammers to pay in advance of shipping an item or if there are signals that an account is engaged in suspicious activity.
“We recently launched measures that use facial recognition technology to help detect and prevent celeb-bait scams and enable faster identity verification for account recovery on Meta platforms,” it said. “Video selfie verification using facial recognition technology is optional,” the company added.
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Meta also said that it is working with various central government agencies such as the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA), and Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) to spread awareness about digital literacy and online safety through training workshops.
As part of its partnership with I4C, Meta said it conducted training workshops on online scams for law enforcement agencies in seven Indian states.
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