TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The number of complaints filed about online investment scams as of the end of November reached 710, surpassing last year's level, according to Taiwan's financial regulator.

In response to the rampant fraud, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said it is collaborating with Meta and Google, where fake investment ads mostly persist, to respond to complaints and alert the platform operators to quickly remove the ads.

The collaboration which began this April has led to the removal of 15,511 financial investment fraud ads on Google and Meta between April 11 and Nov. 30, according to the FSC.

The FSC data showed the highest number of complaints and alerts occurred in November, which amounted to 4,491, followed by 2,497 cases in May. The number of investment fraud complaints reached 710 by the end of November 2023, in contrast to 636 complaints throughout the whole year of 2022.

Scammers usually pose as securities commission agencies, financial institutions, or personal finance influencers to mislead victims into buying investment products or virtual assets invented by the criminal rings. The victims usually placed their bets on initial small gains and could not cash out their entire bets after realizing they were scammed, the FSC said.