By Aisha Dow
Social media giant Meta has been profiting from hundreds of Facebook scam advertisements preying on Australians experiencing financial hardship, leaving taxpayers and charities to foot the bill.
In the cruel swindles, scammers take out ads impersonating well-known Australian charities and not-for-profit organisations, including the Salvation Army, Brotherhood of St Laurence, St Vincent de Paul Society, Anglicare, the Smith Family and Good Shepherd.
Jason Haines, the managing director of Canberra food relief charity St John’s Care, said it made him “physically sick” to know that scammers were “preying on people that are basically going without”.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The fraudulent ads purport to offer no-interest loans to people with low incomes facing unexpected costs, such as replacing a broken fridge, car repairs so they can get to work, or bond money to secure a rental property.
In reality, they trick Australians into handing over sensitive personal details that allow scammers to crack into their myGov accounts, redirect their Centrelink payments and steal their identities.
In some instances, stolen Centrelink payments have been reissued to victims, meaning Australian taxpayers are also bearing the cost of Meta’s failure to screen out the scam ads.
A no-interest loan scam ad, using an image of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese without his permission.Credit: Meta Ad Library
Federal Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones, whose government recently introduced laws that could force social media companies to pay compensation to scam victims, said Meta had the ability to remove the ads.
“Meta should be removing this content immediately,” Jones said. “They should be prioritising this to keep their network safe.”
Canberra emergency food relief charity St John’s Care is frequently impersonated on Facebook scam ads.
Managing director Jason Haines said the charity received hundreds of calls since August last year from people who wrongly believed they were applying for a loan with St John’s Care.
“They’re targeting people from all around the country … We’ve had people call from Perth, from Darwin, Adelaide and Tasmania,” he said.
“Some of the people that are calling us, they’re saying to us: ‘But I gave them my pension, now there’s no money in my account. I can’t buy food for my children this weekend because I have no money left until Centrelink works it out.’”
One man caught out by fraudsters was seeking a small loan to travel from NSW to Canberra to attend his daughter’s funeral, and to cover funeral expenses. The grieving father was stripped of four weeks’ worth of Centrelink payments.
“He went to the funeral but had no way of getting back [home] and nowhere to stay,” Haines said. “He slept on the streets for two days, begging to get money to be able to go back home.”
Each time a new scam page emerged and began running ads, it took hours to get Facebook to remove it, Haines said. He questioned why the platform couldn’t proactively detect pages impersonating long-established charities.
Reviews by Facebook users who say that they fell victim to no-interest loan scams on the platform via a page impersonating the St Vincent de Paul Society.Credit: Facebook
St John’s Care, which has just five staff members, is already facing soaring demand for emergency relief from local families.
“You’d think that there would be some sort of program that they [Meta] could run to support us, but instead a charity that gets no government funding in our own right is struggling to do the basics because we’ve now had this extra job of supporting people [who have been scammed],” Haines said.
“They’re just allowing the poor and vulnerable to continue to get targeted.”
Another scam ad that ran on Facebook this month, impersonating the St Vincent de Paul Society.Credit: Meta Ad Library
Almost 800 ads using the term NILS, or no-interest loan scheme, were served up to Australians using Meta’s platforms between August 21 and October 16 last year, analysis by this masthead found.
The ads continued even after the National Anti-Scam Centre issued a public warning about the fake financial assistance schemes.
The centre’s warning cited a case in which a person had their disability support pension stolen after providing personal details to scammers who had set up a Facebook page called “Emergency Rental Assistance Program”.
Many of the scam ads originate from Facebook pages managed in Nigeria. These pages only have a few likes and followers and show content copied and pasted from legitimate charity groups.
Meta did not respond to questions, other than noting it was investigating the ads flagged by this masthead.
As recently as Thursday, charity scam ads targeting Australians were still running on Facebook.
A page managed from Nigeria impersonating the Red Cross was pushing an ad promising Australian Facebook users assistance with “essential costs without the stress of high-interest debt”.
Other ads masqueraded as representing Good Shepherd, St Vincent de Paul Society and Brotherhood of St. Laurence.
This masthead reported 11 of the charity Facebook scam pages to Facebook via its reporting tool. The company removed five pages, but declined to remove six.
This masthead reported a page impersonating Good Shepherd in mid-February. The page has reviews warning it was a scam dating back to August last year. Facebook refused to review or remove the page. Credit: Facebook
In three instances, Facebook replied that it was unable to review the reports because its review team was “focused on the most severe cases with potential for real-world harm”.
In another three cases, it ruled the pages didn’t go against Facebook’s community standards. Among them was a page impersonating St John’s Care, which is managed from Nigeria, incorrectly lists a Queensland address for the Canberra group and advertises loans the real charity does not offer.
Meta had previously promised it would begin verifying financial services advertisers in Australia, with the changes due to come into effect this month.
There were 120 reports of no-interest loan scams referred to Scamwatch in 2024.
Services Australia could not provide data on how many Centrelink recipients had fallen victim to no-interest loan scams, but general manager Hank Jongen confirmed there had been a growing trend of scammers impersonating organisations to steal people’s sign-in personal details.
Jongen advised the public never to give anyone myGov sign-in details.
“If a customer shares their myGov sign-in or Centrelink online account details, scammers may be able to change the person’s bank details to redirect payments or obtain more of their information.”
Many of the charities targeted by social media scammers offer genuine no-interest loans to low-income Australians, and are now running prominent scam warnings on their websites.
Facebook users give negative reviews to a fake Good Shepherd page masquerading as the genuine no-interest loans provider.Credit: Facebook
Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand oversees a national no-interest loan program with partners around the country.
Eligible Australians can borrow up to $2000 for household items such as furniture, car repairs, and registration and education expenses such as fees and uniforms. Loans of up to $3000 are available for those needing assistance with rent or costs associated with a natural disaster.
The loans attract no interest and fees, and can be repaid over up to two years depending on the person’s circumstances.
Nicholas Verginis, Good Shepherd’s executive general manager of ecosystem enablement, said no-interest loans were a “powerful option” for Australians in crisis, including those who have to relocate because of family violence.
Verginis said that while credit cards or buy-now-pay-later schemes might provide immediate help, they left people in a worse position in the long term. He said reports of no-interest loan scams had started increasing late last year.
St Vincent de Paul Society Victoria, another genuine non-interest loans provider, said the charity had issued warnings about impersonators since June.
“We work with some of Victoria’s most vulnerable people, and when scammers strike, the consequences can be devastating, including financial loss, emotional distress and a deep sense of betrayal,” a spokesperson said.
“To be clear, Vinnies will never offer NILS or any kind of financial support via social media.”
Australians can search for NILS providers via the Good Shepherd website here.
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