Bank Leumi Sues Meta for NIS 26.6 Million Over Fraudulent Ads on Facebook and Instagram

Bank Leumi filed a lawsuit on Monday at the Tel Aviv District Court against Meta, seeking NIS 26.6 million. The bank accuses Meta of systematically allowing paid fraudulent advertisements impersonating Bank Leumi on Facebook and Instagram. According to the complaint, Meta approves and promotes these deceptive ads without adequate filtering or oversight, despite clear warning signs. The ads misuse the bank's name and trademarks, offering false incentives such as shopping vouchers and car raffles to lure users into providing login credentials and verification codes. These details were then exploited by attackers to access bank accounts and withdraw funds.

The lawsuit highlights that the fraudulent ads were conspicuous due to awkward language, links to corrupted websites, and publication from anonymous accounts not verified by the bank. Bank Leumi quantifies damages at NIS 3.9 million for reimbursing affected customers, NIS 17.7 million for monitoring and operational costs, and NIS 5 million for reputational harm. The bank notes a sharp increase in such activity, with 243 fake ads detected in July alone, exceeding the total for the first half of 2026, and NIS 590,000 in customer losses during the first two weeks of August, alongside NIS 9.2 million in prevented damage.

Beyond financial compensation, the lawsuit demands permanent injunctions against Meta, including mandatory pre-publisher identity verification, stricter conditions on financial ads, clear warnings on ads from unverified accounts, early access for the bank to review ads bearing its name, and disclosure of advertiser details for enforcement purposes. Bank Leumi claims previous repeated complaints to Meta resulted only in limited, delayed removals of individual ads.