The European Union has reached a political agreement on its long-awaited Retail Investment Strategy (RIS), a reform package aimed at encouraging retail participation in capital markets and improving consumer protection. Yet, the final compromise reveals a familiar pattern: the European financial lobby has once again succeeded in neutralising the most
Scam advertising on Facebook and Instagram is not a niche problem—it’s a systemic consumer-protection risk, with cross-border impacts and real financial harm. Recently, Reuters published a series of investigations alleging that fraud and prohibited ads remain widespread on Meta’s platforms, supported by internal documents and on-platform tests. For consumer organisations
On 5 December 2025, the European Commission imposed a €120 million fine on X (formerly Twitter) for breaches of transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), citing deceptive design related to “verified” blue checkmarks, deficiencies in the advertising repository, and failures regarding researchers’ access to public data. For victims
The revision of the EU Victims’ Rights Directive announced on 10 December 2025 is presented as a major step forward for crime victims in Europe, just like the new PSR/PSD3 package is sold as a breakthrough for payment users. But for online investment fraud victims, the reform is a missed
At EFRI, we are contacted almost daily by victims of online investment scams who have been pushed into “investing” in crypto assets. The pattern is always the same: first, victims are convinced to invest in crypto – they either buy crypto on the scammers’ instructions or transfer existing crypto assets
A Billion-Dollar Betrayal When Reuters revealed last week that Meta Platforms earns an estimated $16 billion per year from advertisements “clearly showing signs of being fraudulent,” it confirmed what EFRI warned about already in 2022: Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) does not protect victims of online fraud — it protects
Europe built fast, low-cost payment rails. Victims deceived into initiating payments are still left alone. Our paper, a contribution to the ongoing discussion, sets out a solution based on the experience we made during the past years: treat fraudulently induced payments as unauthorised, make reimbursement the default at the payer’s
Carter-Ruck, one of the UK’s most feared libel law firms, is facing disciplinary proceedings over its role in the £4 billion OneCoin scam. The Solicitors Regulation Authority alleges partner Claire Gill made an improper threat designed to silence criticism, raising serious questions about how elite law firms can become financial
Five Years of Silence: EFRI Demands DNB Report – for the Scam Victims and the StabIR License Review In September 2020, the Dutch financial supervisory authority, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), finalised a supervisory report on Payvision B.V. That report—according to official sources—confirmed serious and structural AML breaches, directly linked to
As digital payments surge across Britain, the UK has become Europe’s most advanced cashless society, processing more than 48 billion electronic payments in 2023 alone. But with this progress comes a sharp rise in “push payment” fraud (APP fraud), making robust consumer protection more vital than ever. The UK’s new
