Meta Sues Advertisers Over Celebrity Impersonation Scams, Disables Payment Methods

“Celeb bait” scams misuse the names, likenesses and purported endorsements of celebrities or public figures in social media ads to lure users into investing money or surrendering personal information. Such schemes not only violate image rights but also exploit Meta Platforms' advertising and payment systems to broaden their reach, making the platform's ability to disrupt payments and ad distribution central to fraud prevention.

Meta Platforms said on the Thursday cited in the report that it had sued advertisers suspected of running celebrity impersonation scam ads. It also took technical enforcement measures, including disabling related payment methods, blocking domains linked to the schemes and suspending advertising accounts. Meta has not disclosed the number of advertisers involved, the amount of money raised illegally or victims' losses, and did not provide the exact date of the Thursday announcement.