When researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate sat down to measure how effectively Facebook was protecting older Americans from Medicare scams, what they found was not a platform fighting fraud. It was a platform profiting from it.

The CCDH’s investigation, released May 11, 2026, documented a systematic failure by Meta — Facebook’s parent company — to stop scam advertisers who were explicitly, repeatedly, and lucratively targeting seniors with fraudulent Medicare offers. The numbers are specific enough to be damning.

What the Investigation Found

The CCDH analyzed ads placed by 30 of the most active Medicare scam accounts on Facebook over a one-year period. Those 30 accounts generated an estimated 215 million ad impressions — nearly six times the reach of all previous years combined.

73% of those impressions reached users over the age of 65.

This is not an accident. Facebook’s advertising platform allows advertisers to target users by age, interest, and behavior. Scam operators were using Meta’s own targeting tools to identify and reach the exact demographic most likely to click on an ad promising free government money through Medicare.

Meta’s estimated revenue from those scam advertisers: $14.3 million total, with $12.4 million earned in the past year alone.

The Ads Themselves

The fraudulent ads followed a consistent pattern. They impersonated government programs — specifically Medicare Advantage — and promised benefits that do not exist or vastly overstated what’s available.

Common false offers included:

  • $3,600 in free grocery cards through Medicare
  • Free rent assistance for eligible seniors
  • Thousands of dollars in “unclaimed” government benefits

The ads were designed to look like official government communications. Several used deepfake images and videos of prominent public figures to make the offers seem credible:

  • Donald Trump — shown appearing to endorse the Medicare benefit programs
  • Joe Biden — similarly used to imply government backing
  • Oprah Winfrey — depicted promoting the fake benefit offers
  • Steve Harvey — used in ads promoting the fraudulent programs
  • Brad Pitt — also used in deepfake ad content

None of these individuals endorsed any such products. None authorized the use of their likeness. The deepfake content was created specifically to exploit the trust that older Americans place in familiar, authoritative faces.

After clicking the ads, victims did not receive the promised benefits. Instead, their personal data — name, address, phone number, date of birth — was harvested and, in many cases, used to enroll them in insurance plans they did not want or to enable downstream fraud.

The Enforcement Problem

What makes the CCDH findings particularly troubling is not that Meta was unaware of the scam advertisers. It is that Meta repeatedly allowed them to continue even after taking enforcement action against them.

Nearly every scam advertiser in the CCDH dataset had ads removed for policy violations. The average advertiser had 151 separate ads removed. One advertiser accumulated 1,335 policy violations before becoming inactive.

In one documented case, an advertiser ran 86 ads with nearly identical content. Meta removed 48 of them. The other 38 — functionally the same ad, making the same false claims — were allowed to remain active.

This is not a moderation problem caused by scale. This is an enforcement system that removes the most obvious violations while allowing nearly identical content to keep running. For scam advertisers, the calculus is straightforward: get a few ads removed, rerun the same content with minor variations, and continue generating revenue.

Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, stated: “Meta is doing business with scammers preying on older Americans, providing them with a sophisticated advertising platform that helps them identify and access potential victims.”

The Geographic Pattern

The CCDH analysis found that scam Medicare ads were concentrated in specific states with large populations of older adults. The most heavily targeted states were:

  • Texas
  • Florida
  • North Carolina
  • Pennsylvania

Florida — with one of the highest concentrations of retired Americans in the country — is a perennial target for Medicare fraud of all kinds. The geographic pattern suggests that scam advertisers were not just targeting the 65+ age group nationally. They were specifically concentrating resources in states where that demographic is most densely clustered.

Meta’s Response

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone defended the platform’s record: the company “removed more than 159 million scam ads last year, with 92% taken down before users reported them.”

That number is significant as a raw total. But it cannot be evaluated in isolation from the CCDH’s findings. The fact that 159 million ads were removed means 159 million scam ads were placed on the platform in the first place. The question is not just how many were removed, but what percentage of actual scam impressions that removal rate represents — and whether the financial model that allows scammers to profit even after repeated enforcement actions is structurally sound.

The CCDH investigation suggests the answer to the latter question is no.

The CCDH report is not the only pressure Meta is currently facing on this issue. Two separate legal actions are underway:

Consumer Federation of America has filed a class action lawsuit against Meta over its failure to protect users from fraudulent advertising.

Santa Clara County has filed its own lawsuit targeting Meta’s tolerance of fraudulent ads, with a focus on harm to older residents.

These cases follow a broader pattern of regulatory and legal scrutiny directed at social media platforms for their role in distributing scam content. The FTC has separately documented that social media is now the most productive channel for scam delivery in the United States, with losses reaching $2.1 billion in 2025.

What This Means for Older Adults and Their Families

The Medicare scam ecosystem exposed in the CCDH report operates in a specific way that family members of older adults should understand clearly.

The ads look official. They use government program names, Medicare branding, and in many cases the likenesses of well-known public figures. An older adult who sees an ad that appears to show Donald Trump or Oprah Winfrey promoting a Medicare benefit program is not being foolish to initially take it seriously. The content is designed by professionals to look credible.

The goal is data, not just a one-time sale. When victims click through and provide personal information, that data is collected and frequently sold to other operators or used for additional fraud. The immediate harm — enrolling in an unwanted insurance plan — may be less severe than the downstream harm from having personal and financial information in scammer databases.

Facebook is not a neutral conduit. The platform is not simply failing to stop scams. It is actively earning revenue from scam advertisers and providing them with sophisticated tools to identify and reach the most vulnerable targets. Older adults and their family members should understand this structural reality.

How to Protect Yourself and Your Family

Treat all “Medicare benefit” ads with skepticism. No legitimate Medicare program advertises via Facebook ads promising thousands of dollars in free groceries or rent assistance. If the offer sounds unusually generous, it is fraudulent.

Verify through official channels only. Medicare information is available at medicare.gov or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227). Any Medicare-related offer should be verified through those official channels before providing any personal information.

Report suspicious ads. Scam ads can be reported directly through Facebook’s reporting mechanism. Reports can also be filed with the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint and with the Medicare fraud hotline at 1-800-HHS-TIPS (1-800-447-8477).

Talk to older relatives about this specific scam pattern. The deepfake celebrity endorsement format is highly effective precisely because it exploits trust in familiar faces. Family conversations that specifically address “Facebook ads that appear to show [trusted celebrity] promoting Medicare benefits are always fake” are more useful than general fraud warnings.

The CCDH investigation makes one thing clear: the platform itself is not a neutral party in this. Meta has the technical capacity to identify and remove these ads at scale. The evidence suggests it has chosen, repeatedly, not to fully exercise that capacity — while continuing to collect advertising revenue from the operators running them.

To report Medicare fraud, call 1-800-HHS-TIPS or visit oig.hhs.gov. To report scam ads on Facebook, use the three-dot menu on any ad and select “Report Ad.”