Facebook promised £3 million to help support anti-scam services as well as introducing a tool to report scam adverts on the UK version of Facebook.

However, this is all due to Martin Lewis, a TV presenter and journalist who advises people on financial issues. He took Facebook to court for repeatedly failing to stop scammers using his name to advertise scam products.

Scammers often use the names of well-known people to make their offers seem more attractive and legitimate and Facebook has done very little to stop this practice or clamp down when this is reported.

Lewis sued Facebook in April 2018 they settled him by agreeing to donate £3m to Citizens Advice and create a new scam advert reporting tool.

Now, Facebook has launched the button on its UK site to allow people to report scam adverts. This lets users click the three dots ‘. . .‘ on the top right of an advert and then select the ‘Report Ad‘ function, followed by ‘Misleading or scam advert‘. Then, they have to confirm that they want to send a detailed scam report.

This is a big win for Lewis, who had his name hijacked and reputation damaged and had to spend $100,000 facing the social media giant down in court and turned the whole thing into something positive that will help consumers. Nice one Martin.

Well done Facebook, but shame you only agreed to the action because of a court case.

If you have any experiences with scammers or fake adverts on Facebook – do let me know, by email.