Product design question
Design an anti-scamming product for Meta.
- Meta
- Product design
- Easy
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
Start a mock interview on this question · Mock interview from a job description
What this question tests
Trust and safety product design: can you design a scam-detection product balancing false positives (annoying real users) against false negatives (missed scams).
How to approach it
- Define scam types relevant to Meta: marketplace scams, romance scams in Messenger/Dating, and fake investment/crypto ads.
- Pick one to focus on, e.g. Marketplace scams, since it has clear transactional signals to detect.
- Propose detection signals: new account age, pricing far below market rate, requests to move payment off-platform.
- Design the intervention: warning banners before payment, delayed listing visibility for high-risk new sellers, and easy reporting.
- Address the tradeoff: overly aggressive flagging hurts legitimate sellers, so calibrate thresholds and offer an appeal/verification path.
- Define success: reduction in confirmed scam reports without a large increase in legitimate listing removals.
What a strong answer includes
- Scopes to one scam type (Marketplace) with concrete signals rather than a vague 'detect all scams' answer.
- Names specific behavioral signals (off-platform payment requests, below-market pricing) that are realistic fraud indicators.
- Explicitly weighs false positives against false negatives and proposes an appeal path for wrongly flagged sellers.
- Chooses a success metric that captures both sides: scam reduction and legitimate-seller impact, not just one.
Common mistakes
- Trying to cover every scam type shallowly instead of going deep on one.
- Ignoring the false-positive cost to legitimate users, which is often the harder half of this problem.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you handle a new legitimate seller who gets incorrectly flagged?
- How would scammers likely adapt to your detection signals, and how would you stay ahead?
More product design questions
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More questions from Meta
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop