Facebook and Instagram just got boycotted overs scams! Read THIS letter
The chief executive officer of Starling Bank Ltd., Anne Boden, has a blunt new year’s message for Meta Platforms Inc.: Get rid of the fraudsters if you want us to advertise with you again. Writing in her latest annual letter, Boden said London-based Starling, which counts Goldman Sachs Group Inc. among its backers, had ceased advertising on Facebook and Instagram, saying Meta wasn’t doing enough to stop scammers from using its platforms.
“We want to protect our customers and our brand integrity,” Boden said in the letter. “And we can no longer pay to advertise on a platform alongside scammers who are going after the savings of our customers and those of other banks.”
Starling’s advertising boycott of Meta began in mid-December, according to a spokeswoman for the bank. Last year, the bank achieved unicorn status after Goldman Sachs and other investors put in more than 300 million pounds ($406 million), valuing the lender in excess of 1.1 billion pounds.
The digital-only bank has been a prolific user of social media platforms to advertise its services, and until late 2020 had been spending hundreds of thousands of pounds a month to advertise on Meta’s main platforms, according to the spokeswoman. That spending dwindled in the past 12 months before the decision was made to cease all Facebook and Instagram advertising.
In her letter, Boden said Starling had been pushing for big tech companies to clamp down on fraudsters’ use of the services. She pointed to Google’s decision in August to stop accepting any financial-services advertising unless the advertiser could prove they were authorized by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority, or met one of a limited number of exemptions.
“Facebook (Meta) indicated in December that it will
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