Digital Services Act study on financial scams on online platforms and ways to counter them

A new study maps the main types of online financial scams, platform features scammers exploit, their impact on users and society and measures platforms can take to stop them.

Online financial scams – fraudulent schemes whose primary aim is to extract money from victims – have grown into a pervasive crime in the digital age. They are present across all types of online intermediary services, including Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Very Large Search Engines (VLOSEs).

The European Commission has procured this study in 2025 to support its supervisory and enforcement tasks under the Digital Services Act (DSA). It provides a typological mapping of financial scam formats across online platforms and assesses existing and emerging mitigation strategies to curb financial scams online.

The study was carried out by Open Evidence and Spark Legal and Policy Consulting. It does not evaluate compliance by providers of VLOPs and VLOSEs.

The study maps different types of online financial scams and categorises them in six broad categories:

The study finds that investment scams and romance scams are the most common and fastest-growing forms of scams in Europe. It also finds that the scam landscape is increasingly being redefined by overlapping methods across different categories.

Online platforms features and financial scams

The study presents information on relevant features related to scams on online platforms including:

The study also shows how financial scams operate across different platforms and are facilitated by organised criminal networks that sell tools and services, effectively lowering the barrier to entry.

The study identifies relevant countermeasures across 4 categories: