Last June i told you that the Wall Street Journal did a scathing story that said that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram had become the “cornerstone of the internet fraud economy.” According to the story Meta accounted for nearly half of all reported scams involving Zelle at major banks. The story also reported that 70% of new advertisers on Meta’s platforms promote scams or low quality products. Many of the scammers placing these ads, according to the Journal, were Southeast Asian crime networks. The article went on to say that Meta did a poor job of taking down fraudulent ads because it prioritized its 16 billion dollar profit from scam ads over protecting its users from being scammed. For its part, Meta says that according to federal law it is not responsible for scam ads on their sites.
Recently the Consumer Federation of America sued Meta alleging “Meta has adopted policies and practices that it knows allow scam advertisements to proliferate on its platforms while simultaneously profiting off those ads at is users’ expense.” The complaint also accuses Meta of downplaying the scale of fraud on Facebook and Instagram and creating a false impression of safety.
TIPS
So how do you protect yourself from these phony ads?
You can start off by checking the profile page of the poster to see if it has many followers. Also, legitimate businesses will have websites. Check out these websites to see if they are legitimate.
Asking for payments to be made by wired funds, gift cards, Venmo or Zelle is also a good indication that it is a scam. Venmo and Zelle should never be used for commercial transactions and gift cards are not an accepted method of payment for goods to anyone other than scammers.
Look for customer feedback and review sites such as Trustpilot.
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