Consumers Council sues Meta, LINE, Apple over online investment scams

The Thailand Consumers Council filed civil lawsuits today against global platforms, including Meta, the parent company of Facebook, as well as LINE, Apple and several financial institutions, alleging negligence in allowing online scammers to defraud victims through fraudulent investment schemes.

The council is seeking 230 million baht in collective compensation for losses suffered by 10 claimants who fell victim to the scams.

Nannapatsorn Techpanyaphipat, who is overseeing the lawsuits for the council, said the defendants are divided into two groups: multinational platform operators, including Meta, LINE and Apple, and financial institutions.

She said the platform operators and financial institutions should be held accountable because their lack of oversight allowed scammers to exploit their services and platforms to deceive victims.

“Without the fraudulent advertisements on Facebook, without the communication service provided by LINE, without the applications distributed through Apple and without the commercial banks that served as channels for transferring money to the scammers, the scammers would not have been able to cheat their victims,” Nannapatsorn said.

According to the lawsuit, the scam operations preyed on victims' desire to learn stock trading as a way to earn additional income and acquire investment knowledge through Facebook, creating an opportunity for scammers to target them.

Fraudulent advertising pages were created using the names and images of real influencers, offering free stock-trading lessons. Interested individuals were then persuaded to join a LINE group with more than 328 members, where access to genuine stock-trading activities was used as part of the teaching process to enhance credibility.

The victims were subsequently encouraged to begin investing through a legitimate brokerage firm by downloading applications from the App Store or Google Play Store. Once everything was in place, the scam operation began and the invested funds were transferred to bank accounts controlled by the scammers.

Saree Aongsomwang, secretary-general of the Thailand Consumers Council, said the lawsuits also target the parent companies of the platform operators in Thailand because they control the systems, advertisements and policies.

She added that the case is not a class-action lawsuit but rather a strategic lawsuit that could set a precedent for other victims seeking compensation for losses caused by fraudulent online investment schemes.