<p>Fraudsters frequently use paid-for advertising to socially engineer consumers into falling victim to fraud. Social media sites and messaging services can unknowingly facilitate fraudulent content, where criminals set up fake profiles and use marketing tools to target the most vulnerable.</p><p>Whilst the NCA regularly conduct assessments to consider the methodologies and typologies of fraudulent activity online, I am not aware of an assessment of the scale of fraud facilitated by paid-for advertising on specific platforms.</p><p>The Government recognises the importance of tackling this issue and set out our approach in the recently published Fraud Strategy, with a key pillar focused on blocking frauds from happening in the first place.</p><p>To do this we are legislating through the Online Safety Bill, including a standalone duty for the largest in-scope platforms to prevent fraudulent advertising appearing on their services.</p><p>The Online Advertising Programme will expand on this to ensure UK-facing online advertising is safe from fraud and other harms. We are also developing an Online Fraud Charter with the largest platforms to agree further voluntary action to tackle online fraud, including through advertising.</p>