European Commission Study on Financial Scams Under the DSA
The European Commission has commissioned a 2025 study on online financial scams to support supervision and enforcement under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Prepared by Open Evidence and Spark Legal and Policy Consulting, the study maps common scam formats, the platform features that can be misused, and measures that may reduce harm. It does not assess whether individual Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) or Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs) comply with the DSA.
The study groups online financial scams into six categories: investment, romance, e-commerce, employment and collaboration, unexpected gain, and disaster-relief scams. Investment and romance scams are identified as particularly prevalent and fast-growing in Europe. The findings also stress that scam techniques increasingly overlap, making fixed categories less useful in practice.
Scams can exploit a wide range of platform functions. Relevant features include targeted advertising, recommender systems, organic-content moderation, monetization tools, app-store distribution, private messaging, and the use of inauthentic accounts. The study also highlights deceptive commercial content and generative AI as important factors in the changing scam environment. Organized criminal networks can support these activities by selling tools, services, and access to fraudulent infrastructure.
The study identifies four groups of countermeasures. First, access and gatekeeping controls, including business-customer verification and identity checks, can prevent abusive actors from entering a service. Second, detection and removal systems, combining automated tools with human review, can identify and act against scam content. Third, effective reporting channels and clear information on redress can help users recognize and report fraud. Finally, internal policies and cooperation with regulators, financial institutions, law-enforcement bodies, and other third parties can strengthen prevention and response.
For DSA purposes, the study provides a useful framework for assessing systemic risks linked to financial scams. It underlines that effective mitigation requires attention not only to individual fraudulent posts or advertisements, but also to the design choices, commercial systems, and cross-platform networks that enable scams to spread.
