Scam Facebook Ads

akira181

Everytime I go on FB, the annoying ads in my news feeds are all 100% scams. All of them. Every time without fail.

Like a full DeWalt power tools set (RRP well over £1000) for $29.99. Amazon Pallets, magic face washes, games consoles, cat wheels, and any other fake ad that they might have scraped from your cookies somewhere for a fraction of RRP cost, as well as the fake "closing down" sales for websites that were created less than 2 weeks ago.

You look at the comments and they're all singing their praises about how fast it arrived, how great the product was, how they've bought X amount of them, etc. Every couple weeks, the scam ads go full circle. You look at the comments and the exact same pictures are being posted praising the product but from different accounts. Safe to assume all these "reviews" are just paid for bot reviews.

I've reported the scam ads to FB but that feature is essentially a direct message to the recycle bin. How do they get away with it when it's so blatantly obvious?

MorningcoffeeIV

Because there are sufficient people on Facebook who believe them. Many of them come here once they've lost their money.

Never over-estimate the intelligence of Facebook users. It tends to attract the most gullible of users, more so than other platforms.

flaneurs_lobster

Exactly what @MorningcoffeeIV says. As the old saying goes "if advertising doesn't work why do companies spend millions on it every year?". And that was in the olden days when adverts were TV, magazine and billboard ads.

These Facebook and other social media "adverts" cost next to nothing to produce/distribute to millions, if the take-up rate is a tiny percentage of the distribution then they are worthwhile to the originators. Ditto spam emails/texts/phone calls.

akira181

My question isn't why are there ads, that much is obvious.

My question is how are Facebook allowed to knowingly let these scams run without any consequences. Scams, false advertising, etc are illegal and Facebook is complicit, facilitating such ads and making a profit. Why doesn't trading/advertising standards or some other regulatory body put a stop to it?

Martin Lewis sued for the scam ads impersonating him but instead of making FB clean up their act, it's given others the same idea and made it more prolific it seems.

frankie

try installing flufbuster it will kill all the ads and much more. bpurity.com

Farway

frankie said:

try installing flufbuster it will kill all the ads and much more. bpurity.com

Works fine, but not on mobiles, maybe OP is using a phone & not PC?

I find with mobile FB is just unusable due to ads, fine on PC

akira181

yeah, not being able to install some sort of adblock on android is a real bummer but understandable. App developers (and google) need to make money somehow, although with the trend of devs moving to a subscription model, not sure if that'll still be the case in a couple years.

The_disappointed

Ad blockers won't stop the scam ads on Facebook, as the ads appears as posts, there's one on the go at present for a scam investment, using a widely discredited claim that Robert Peston and Mary Nightingale had a huge row on ITN  news during the report in which he was alleged to tell us about it. It uses AI footage in some scams, and is quite clearly (to the reasonable well informed) nonsense. The links in "posts" that are really ads even use photos of Peston with comments that imply he has died, or suffered some negatively life changing event.

Bottom line is, when you report these to FB using Martin Lewis's wonderful reporting system, you just get told "it does not contravene Facebooks policy on Advertising" which begs the question "What DOES?" Seems all Martin's efforts have done is get FB to pay absolute minimal lip-service to the problem, though maybe if it were his photo they'd take it down!

Hilariously, FB claim it won't accept ads that are debunked by 3rd party fact checkers, yet when I pointed out that the ad had been, it made no difference. Time for Martin to "have a word" again?

akira181

bit of a gravedig, thread was 1 year 1 day old!

Most of the "ads" and "suggested posts" is just far-right hate speech, scams, and blatantly untrue. Has been getting progressively worse for the better part of a decade now. FB have no incentive to remove fake news or hate speech as people arguing keeps attention on the platform. And the dregs of society keep posting bull**** as FB do nothing and getting lots of comments is good for their page. They're all some variation of:

• "<insert random celebrity> refused to work with <insert company/person> over <insert random LGBT reason>"
•  "<insert fictional trans athlete> dominates <insert fictional tournament>"
• Even about stupid stuff like "Formula 1 Driver <insert random driver> <insert fictional drama>"  and gets immediately debunked every race weekend when it doesn't happen.
  

And the number of gullible morons blindly believing and commenting their congratulations or disgust at fictional hate speech is just plain depressing. Civilisation/education is going backwards while the unscrupulous profit from it. The mind rot "Truth Social" where theory becomes fact being valued at $9 billion is a perfect example. Fuelling hate and anger pays and you don't even need evidence anymore. Post whatever you want and that becomes the evidence.

I went for the foolproof option of deleting FB 8 months ago and haven't looked back since. Life has been much better for it. Social Media is one of those things humanity should un-invent if we could.

flaneurs_lobster

akira181 said:

bit of a gravedig, thread was 1 year 1 day old!

Most of the "ads" and "suggested posts" is just far-right hate speech, scams, and blatantly untrue. Has been getting progressively worse for the better part of a decade now. FB have no incentive to remove fake news or hate speech as people arguing keeps attention on the platform. And the dregs of society keep posting bull**** as FB do nothing and getting lots of comments is good for their page. They're all some variation of:

• "<insert random celebrity> refused to work with <insert company/person> over <insert random LGBT reason>"
•  "<insert fictional trans athlete> dominates <insert fictional tournament>"
• Even about stupid stuff like "Formula 1 Driver <insert random driver> <insert fictional drama>"  and gets immediately debunked every race weekend when it doesn't happen.
  

And the number of gullible morons blindly believing and commenting their congratulations or disgust at fictional hate speech is just plain depressing. Civilisation/education is going backwards while the unscrupulous profit from it. The mind rot "Truth Social" where theory becomes fact being valued at $9 billion is a perfect example. Fuelling hate and anger pays and you don't even need evidence anymore. Post whatever you want and that becomes the evidence.

I went for the foolproof option of deleting FB 8 months ago and haven't looked back since. Life has been much better for it. Social Media is one of those things humanity should un-invent if we could.

Wise words - the recent "attack ad" from Tory Central directed against the London Mayor featuring plain lies is a preview of the kind of stuff that will ramp up as the General Election looms.

Very depressing that posts still appear here saying "I saw a feature on FB featuring famous footballer/TV celeb/ex-owner of MSE telling me to invest all my money in <insert scam scheme> for a guaranteed 300% return in a month, why can't I get my money out?"