Check My Ads is reporting that it has launched a new campaign against online scams, hosted under a group project called United To Stop Online Scams. The nonprofit said scams are more prevalent than ever and that artificial intelligence is making them more convincing and harder to spot. It said the problem is a platform issue rather than a failure of individual users.
Check My Ads said roughly 1 in 10 people are scammed each year. It said Meta alone profits from scam ads on its platform to the tune of up to $16 billion a year, citing a Reuters report referenced in a recent Check My Ads and Goodbot policy brief titled "The Scam Tax."
The organization said it is pushing for reform alongside other NGOs, including support for the SAFE Platforms Act, a model bill that states can adopt. It said a key demand is basic Know-Your-Customer rules for advertisers, under which platforms would have to verify who an advertiser is before that advertiser can run ads. Check My Ads said there is currently no standardized verification process across platforms, allowing scam advertisers to move from platform to platform and run campaigns that fuel billions in losses. It said KYC is already a standard in the financial industry and would make it harder for scammers to run ads and evade detection by authorities.
Check My Ads also offered guidance for consumers, saying people should never pay with gift cards, cryptocurrency or gold, and should instead use credit cards that offer fraud protection. It advised monitoring and freezing credit, being skeptical of offers that sound too good to be true, and never sharing personal details such as bank data or Social Security numbers.
The organization said it will mark a National Day of Action on September 30 with a virtual webinar at 1 p.m. ET and in-person events across the country. It invited people affected by scams to share their stories through unitedtostoponlinescams.org, saying nothing will be published without permission and that contributors may remain anonymous.