[Rant]Scam ads on facebook

[acroman08]

I'm sure a lot of us here have seen a lot of scam ads on Facebook and have become the norm(at least for me), but recently, I feel like the amount of scam ads being shown on Facebook has doubled. I was scrolling Facebook for at least less than 5 mins earlier, and I encountered 8 sponsored scam ads. I wouldn't mind seeing 8 scam ads in the span of at least 30 mins, but seeing that much in less than 5 mins is just annoying and honestly ridiculous. I used to report a lot of those sponsored ads, but after realising tha facebook doesn't do anything about it, I just gave up. I guess it's time to spend less time on Facebook.

Also, I hope this also acts as an awareness to people who are new to crypto. And if you know anyone who is just learning about crypto, it'll be good to educate them about this.

Here are the ads I saw on Facebook.

[Orpichukwu]

Meta has turned out to be the new home for scammers after X. I don't know which of the two platforms accommodates the most scammers; these paid ads just appear everywhere, and if you mistakenly click on one, it's as if you have alerted the algorithm, which suggests them to you, and you will keep on seeing them appear on your newsfeed. Sometimes I try to report them; other times I just ignore them and keep on scrolling.

[julerz12]

Just report them, or better yet, completely avoid that platform.
Facebook (I won't call them with their new name lol ) doesn't seem to care what sponsored ads are served towards their users, and what's bad is that they sell/use your data for whatever purpose they see fit, which will also probably be used by these scam ads too.
Changing your smartphone's DNS to AdGuard's DNS also doesn't seem to help, as those ads are directly from within their app/servers.
Man, I miss the days when the internet was simple. Now, it's complicated and has too much noise. Maybe we should just read newspapers again. 

[jcojci]

If you report the ads to Facebook, I am not sure they will take down the ads and prohibit especially if they pay for high cost. Maybe Facebook will reminds them and ask them to cancel their ads for a while until no reports to them.

I am not too often checks my Facebook so I don't see the ads. But if I see it, I will leave it and will not click because I don't interesting with the ads.

[freedomgo]

I see this all the time, almost every time I open Facebook. I honestly don’t understand why Meta doesn’t moderate these scams better. They don’t even need deep investigation to know it’s a scam, most of these ads are already screaming too good to be true.

They lure people into downloading fake apps or visiting phishing sites, then boom, you’re done.

So since this is in the scam accusation section, who are we really accusing here. The scammers themselves, or Facebook for allowing this kind of thing to keep circulating.

[Charles-Tim]

Just report them, or better yet, completely avoid that platform.

I use X, YouTube and nothing more. I wonder why people are using Facebook because I mostly see anything happening online on X and YouTube where scam are far less.

Only what Mark Zuckerberg owns that I use is Whatsapp. I think everybody use WhatsApp if it is available in the country.

There are some scam contents on YouTube, I report them as soon as possible but they are rear to see. I only use X to read what is happening about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

It will be better for Facebook users to report the scam ads if they like the platform but I do not think I can make use of such platform.

[ScamViruS]

Scam ads have been running on Meta for a long time, and even after reporting these ads, they are often not removed because Meta prioritizes money over user safety. Facebook users actually need to be careful to keep themselves safe from such scam ads, because Facebook is approving scam ads without proper review, which is creating security issues for users. I encounter these scam ads every day, and since I know what the purpose of these ads is, I don't fall into the scammers' traps. But most Facebook users are unaware of these scams, which have made Facebook dangerous for them, and Facebook is deliberately creating them.

[Upgrade00]

It's so difficult to get a crypto add up on Facebook, I would expect that scams would be much more difficult to get through but that's obviously not the case here.

In your privacy settings you can reduce the number of ads you see on a particular topic. I can't see a way to block ads yet but you can reduce how they customize it to your interests.

[Alpha Marine]

Meta has turned out to be the new home for scammers after X. I don't know which of the two platforms accommodates the most scammers; these paid ads just appear everywhere, and if you mistakenly click on one, it's as if you have alerted the algorithm, which suggests them to you, and you will keep on seeing them appear on your newsfeed. Sometimes I try to report them; other times I just ignore them and keep on scrolling.

I think Facebook is still worse when it comes to crypto scams, but Twitter is really giving it a run for its money because of the number of bots on the platform. The moment you make a complaint with a tweet and mention any crypto-related services, the tweet will start swimming with bots within seconds, and all of them lead to a phishing website or a fake Telegram account. It's crazy.

The worst part about that of facebook is if the app is tracking your off-app activity, you don't even need to click on any of the scam links as long as your browser or apps always visits crypto related sites before the algorithm starts bringing these scam ads to you.

[BitMaxz]

I've been seeing these for almost a day and reported each of them on Facebook with different reasons because they are impersonating Binance and the Solana site, but still they are still appearing on my Facebook. when scrolling down.

I believe the owner who is promoting this on Facebook got a free credit from Facebook. There are few people selling this free credit on marketing forums.
The problem is why Facebook didn't manually check the website before they allowed it to advertise.
Those ads only redirect you to one domain with different paths and parameters. The smart thing is they made it look legit because it shows the right website from the front of their ads, but you will end up at the phishing site.

So be careful clicking the phishing site; sometimes there's a script that automatically installs malware silently.

[coupable]

I see this all the time, almost every time I open Facebook. I honestly don’t understand why Meta doesn’t moderate these scams better. They don’t even need deep investigation to know it’s a scam, most of these ads are already screaming too good to be true.

They lure people into downloading fake apps or visiting phishing sites, then boom, you’re done.

Another major points is that those scam ads pretend to be famous brands in the crypto industry like Binance Okx and Trustwallet. Those companies should have the right to report to authorities the use of their brand names by both the scammers and Meta company. Those ads serve also to damage the reputation of those brands who should react to protect their status in the market.

[Nightwalker(NW)]

The worst thing to do is to report them knowing too well that those ads are being sponsored and paid for.. they paid Facebook to keep displaying those ads to people on their pages and or while making use of their face they do load it up to people and Facebook don't care to check the authenticity of those ads what they mostly cared about is the amount paid to feature those ads to targeted and required audience. For instance, it could be that the ads poster posted it to target people from US or Canada so anyone who is from these country that is above the sets age could starts seeing the ads on their home while scrolling.

[coin-investor]

Even if you set the ads to ignore this kind of ad, still meta will continue to display it; it seems Meta only cared for the revenue, not users' preferences

It's easy to tell if the ads will lead you to a phishing site. If you hover your mouse over the ads and you see that the domain or landing URL is not part of the official domain of the site they are promoting, it's definitely a phishing site.

We are entering a bull market, so expect scammers and hackers to actively scam and hack people. Be aware of their schemes to save your coins.

[FirmWars]

I have been very accustomed to how the system work by now, I'm not new anymore to some games that the scammers are still playing, being a participants in some bounties and airdrop back in the day, I have learned their repeated method. If I see those ads, I don't even spend time to click but I will scroll pass it because I know what they are aiming for. Although since I changed my Facebook, I don't regularly get those ads, apart from that, I'm very careful with ads.

[yahoo62278]

I've gotten to the point where I barely read my timeline anymore on Facebook. Whether a scam or not it's 100s of ads I personally could care less about. Just an FYI for those that don't know, you can swipe left twice and get to posts from friends only. I don't think you see any ads that way.

[bitbollo]

This is another good reason to not use these ridicolous instruments. The idea itself its not bad, but the final result is clear dystopic.
OP after you click one of these, it's like they understand that you can click more of this... this is why you start to see more and more (ads are based on preference etc etc...)
Imagine a guy get scammed. After this... casually appears other services to recover coins, fake lawyers and so on.
"surveillance capitalism" or maybe just another form of capitalism...

[acroman08]

In your privacy settings you can reduce the number of ads you see on a particular topic. I can't see a way to block ads yet but you can reduce how they customize it to your interests.

Thank you for reminding me of this. I've used this years ago, but completely forgot about it until you mentioned it. I just hope it works.

For anyone curious where to find it, go to Settings and privacy> Settings> See more in account center> Ad Preferences. There, you have the option to see fewer ads on certain topics or hide ads that came from a certain advertiser.