Tech giants in scams ‘failure’

Martin Lewis has accused tech firms of being “not interested in funding the victims of scams” despite being “culpable parties” in fraudulent adverts appearing online.

The consumer champion also accused the government of “abrogating responsibility” in recent years because of delays in laws to combat scam ads.

Giving evidence to the digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) subcommittee on online harms and disinformation, he said tech giants had been “flaccid” and “pathetic” in tackling scam advertising.

Mr Lewis said he welcomed the Online Safety Bill, which includes some duties around fraudulent advertising and would spark some action, but criticised both industry

and government over its work on the issue.

He told MPS he had been “very disappointed” at the number of scam adverts that were still appearing on Facebook, despite reaching a legal settlement with the social media giant in 2019 which involved setting up a new scam ads prevention project and a scam reporting tool being installed on the site.

Mr Lewis said that he believed “the resources haven’t been put in” to support the Citizens Advice Scams Action scheme since then.

“I think Citizens Advice Scams Action is going to end up with no funding soon because I have met the other big tech companies and frankly they are not interested in funding the victims of scams, which they are culpable parties to, in my view,” he said.

“The number of those scams, the torrent of scams that are consistently out there... the number of IT experts who say they could write code in five seconds to get rid of them.

“It is simply a question of resource. These are multi-billion-pound companies.”

He added that he had been given “technological balderdash” as the reason for why it was difficult to stop scammers, which he said was “simply wrong”.

Martin Lewis.