In a new case, Meta, the mother company of Facebook and Instagram, is accused of deceiving users regarding what the company does to avert scams on its sites.

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA), a nonprofit advocacy group that filed the complaint in superior court in Washington, D.C, alleged that Meta did not block advertisements that may harm users as it charged more to advertisers to display their content. 

According to CFA, “the policies and practices adopted by Meta have enabled the scam advertisements to flourish on its platforms even as it continues to cash in on such advertisements at the expense of its users.”

The group also charged Meta with minimising the magnitude of fraud on its apps, which created “an illusion of security” to users.

“Meta has always cared more about money than its users’ safety, as Americans lose an increasing amount of money due to online scams,” according to Ben Winters, the director of AI and data privacy at the CFA.

CFA claims that the activities of Meta infringe a consumer protection statute of Washington, D.C. The group is suing for damages and seeking to recover what it believes were unlawful profits the technological giant made out of its advertisements. 

A Meta spokesperson added that “CFA was distorting the actual picture of the work of our company and that the company vigorously fights scams on its platforms.”

The spokesperson, in an email to CBS News, said, “last year, we had removed over 159 million scam ads, 92 per cent of which we removed before they were even reported to us, and 10.9 million accounts on Facebook and Instagram related to criminal scam centres.”

The company said that Meta keeps investing in new technologies to fight securities investment and other scams.