Meta's latest anti-scam campaign targets fake gift card offers ahead of holiday season

Meta has recently disrupted holiday scams targeting shoppers, including fake gift card offers, fraudulent prize claims, and misleading discount decorations.

The Facebook parent company says that its recent anti-scam campaign has successfully removed millions of scam-associated accounts globally. In this most festive time of the year, Meta has also reminded us of its initiatives to Facebook Marketplace, WhatsApp, and Instagram for scam detection and prevention.

“Where these scams showed up on our apps, we took action against the scammers behind them, including blocking their websites and taking down their accounts,” says the company.

On Marketplace, for example, you’ll get alerts if messages seem like scams. On the now-Meta-owned WhatsApp, context cards show details about unknown contacts or groups to spot suspicious activity. On Instagram, the popular video and image-sharing platform, you’ll get warnings if a suspicious account tries to follow you.

Last month, Meta killed roughly two million accounts associated with “pig-butchering” scam centers run by organized crime groups in Southeast Asia and the United Arab Emirates.

O2, one of the UK’s largest mobile network providers, has also launched its own “AI granny” called Daisy. “She” takes care of phone call scammers by keeping them engaged in long, lifelike, and tiresome conversations. It does so for up to 40 minutes, but it can’t be interacted with by the public unless you’re a scammer, of course.