facebook crime?

More users are com­plain­ing about ads on face­book which are actu­al­ly fake web­sites that are designed to suck­er trust­ing face­book users into giv­ing over their cred­it card num­bers to crim­i­nals.

This is a huge prob­lem and it is some­thing that keeps hap­pen­ing.

Tes­la­Coin Scam via Face­book & Email Ads

Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty firm Avast iden­ti­fied a Tes­la­Coin scam cir­cu­lat­ing via Face­book ads and email in August 2022 that encour­aged vic­tims to pay $250 to cre­ate an account and invest in a fraud­u­lent cryp­to-invest­ing plat­form.

There are many alleged bor­der­line scam ads that are show­ing on Face­book from cred­it card num­ber (scams) where you see a prod­uct at a nice price, (usu­al­ly too good to be true) invit­ing you to make a pur­chase by enter­ing your name, email, phone num­ber and cred­it card num­ber. 

They often will state that due to high demand there will be a delay in ship­ping but that your cred­it card num­ber will not be charged until they have received more stock. 

This is the scam and most peo­ple do not real­ize how it works. 

When you enter your cred­it card num­ber you think that you will even­tu­al­ly get the prod­uct they are adver­tis­ing. 

That is not true, what is real­ly hap­pen­ing is that they sell your cred­it card num­ber to a crim­i­nal enter­prise. 

Those crim­i­nals then (man­u­fac­ture a cred­it card with that infor­ma­tion on it)  they then begin to make pur­chas­es in oth­er states, usu­al­ly many miles away. 

You will nev­er receive the order you think you are order­ing because what is real­ly hap­pen­ing is that you are giv­ing your cred­it card num­ber to crim­i­nals that are adver­tis­ing on Face­book. 

Face­book alleged­ly is doing lit­tle or noth­ing to stop these crim­i­nals from adver­tis­ing.  

When you report one of these ads what hap­pens is that they always say ad not removed. 

Why is that?

It could be that they do not want to admit that they should not have allowed that adver­tise­ment in the first place and that by admit­ting that the ad was a vio­la­tion they could be admit­ting that Face­book is respon­si­ble for the loss expe­ri­enced by the vic­tims of that crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. 

Is that hon­est?

No, the solu­tion to criminal’s adver­tis­ing on Face­book would be for Face­book to block these ads before con­sumers face a finan­cial loss. 

In one instance a com­pa­ny adver­tised a weed eat­ing attach­ment. 

When you see the adver­tise­ment on Face­book they show a video show­ing the prod­uct being used to weed land­scap­ing it looks like a real time saver. 

The prob­lem comes when you click on the Ad you go to a web­site that looks like you can order the prod­uct. 

But as part of the web­page, they say orders will take six weeks to deliv­er and that your cred­it card will not be charged until your order ships. 

So, the unsus­pect­ing vic­tim enters their cred­it card num­ber and places an order. 

The prob­lem is that there is no prod­uct, what you just did was to give the alleged crim­i­nals access to your cred­it card num­ber, your name, your phone num­ber, your ship­ping address. 

They now have every­thing they need to dupli­cate your cred­it card num­ber and then allow even more crim­i­nals to take that fake cred­it card and make pur­chas­es. 

This hap­pened… 

In one case where an order was placed from a Face­book ad linked to a fake web­site pur­chas­es were made at a Wal­mart in San Anto­nio Texas, $186.43

Fol­lowed by even more pur­chas­es at Tar­get and oth­er retail loca­tions. 

The cred­it card com­pa­ny nev­er called. 

The fol­low­ing Mon­day we called the cred­it card com­pa­ny and only then did we under­stand what had real­ly hap­pened. 

There could be mil­lions of dol­lars in loss­es which alleged­ly Face­book could take action to help pre­vent this fraud which is allowed to exist on Face­book because so many Face­book users nev­er think that Face­book would allow this to hap­pen to them because they trust Face­book. 

But in this case it is very pos­si­ble that Face­book is just not trust­wor­thy. 

Use cau­tion when deal­ing with Face­book adver­tis­ing. 

IF the price seems too good to be true… 

It prob­a­bly is.. 

scams scams scams

Things you can do to help iden­ti­fy crim­i­nal adver­tis­ing on face­book.

Try a search online for that com­pa­ny that offers that prod­uct. 

(Is the price high­er)  check the address for the com­pa­ny dif­fer­ent that the one you see on the (prob­a­bly fake web­site adver­tised on Face­book?) 

Do they offer a Pay­Pal option for pay­ment?

Most of these fraud and crime web­sites adver­tised on Face­book want one thing your cred­it card num­ber.  (So they usu­al­ly will not accept Pay­Pal) 

But if they do accept Pay­Pal that does not mean that the web­site is real it could be set­up in order to get your per­son­al infor­ma­tion which they will then sell. 

The truth here is that it is very pos­si­ble that Face­book is not act­ing the your best inter­ests. 

Why would Face­book do that?

Sim­ple because alleged­ly they make mon­ey from those alleged crim­i­nals that pay mon­ey to adver­tise on Face­book. 

Face­book makes mon­ey on these fake Ads… 

Just be aware that you may not be safe click­ing on adver­tise­ments on Face­book.