The European Commission published a study on 20 October on financial scams on online platforms, prepared by Open Evidence and Spark Legal under the Digital Services Act (DSA). It examines six types of scam, from investment and romance scams to fake job and charity appeals, with the first two the most common. It finds that scammers exploit ads, recommender systems, messaging services, fake identities and generative AI. It proposes four groups of countermeasures, such as advertiser identity checks, detection and removal, user tools and cooperation, without assessing the compliance of specific platforms.

What it means: The study imposes no obligations, but it gives the Commission evidence for judging whether very large platforms deal adequately with the systemic risks covered by the DSA. The focus on verifying advertisers is particularly important, since fake investment ads using the faces of well-known people are among the most common scams in Greece too. At the same time, the new payment services regulation under discussion in the EU foresees more liability for platforms that fail to remove known scam content, so the study also links to payments. For Greek banks and payment providers, which often bear the cost of refunding victims, shifting part of the responsibility to platforms has practical value. For Greek businesses advertising on social media, stricter identity checks may mean more verification steps before campaigns are approved, especially for financial services. Businesses whose names are used in scams also have an interest in systematically reporting such cases through the DSA mechanisms. The study is useful as well as a training guide for staff and customers on the signs that give a scam away.

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