6 ms·

Facebook ads are trying to scam me

21 points by andrewljohnson 18y ago

eli 18y ago
They say Facebook will do anything to monetize its traffic - even scam its users. Well, they say to me that Facebook ads ain't worth squat and advertisers know it.
- gaius 18y ago
  Which is weird because FB knows a lot about you and can target its ads perfectly. I mostly get ads for stuff related to things in my interests/activities (e.g. diving/snowboarding shops, geek stuff) and dating services (since I am listed as single). But occasionally I see one that's completely off the wall, there's no need for it really. I just downvote them, if everyone did the same they'd disappear.
  - electromagnetic 18y ago
    I get a lot of bizarre adverts on FB. I'm listed as married and I get ads for dating services, also I get ads asking if I want to make $80/hr and crap like that. Ironically I never got any diet pill adverts and I'm possibly their perfect market right now since I gained a lot of holiday weight.
    - jseifer 18y ago
      Well, they say something like 35% of people on dating sites are married so that might have something to do with that. Personally, I use GreaseMonkey scripts to hide the ads on Facebook.
  - eli 18y ago
    The conventional wisdom is that big ad agencies don't want their clients' ads get stuck next to a picture of you puking at a party.
    - gaius 18y ago
      Well, yes and no. It depends on the product I guess. They just need to be smart and include (say) the name of the album or the caption of the photo in their ad targeting algorithm.
jwesley 18y ago
Yea, those grant offers are run by affiliate marketers. It's a major scam. Basically they offer to send you information on grants for the cost of shipping (like $4.99 or so) and then charge your credit card for $90 a couple weeks later. FB banned diet related scams from their ad programs a few weeks ago, so I'd expect them to ban these types of offers as well once the word gets out. These types of scams are the internet's dirty little secret. Google, Yahoo, et al have no problem letting people advertise them either.
- callmeed 18y ago
  FB banned diet related scams from their ad programs a few weeks ago, Do you have any links on this? I'm seeing more and more info about the scams ... just wondering if FB has issued an official statement.
  - jwesley 18y ago
    This thread on WickedFire mentions the post on HN and predicts Grants offers with soon be banned too: http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate-marketing/50846-get-your-grant-ads-now.html http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate-marketing/50846-get-your... It was on the same forum I read about diet offers getting banned. I don't think there was any official statement by Facebook on the matter.
- jsteele 18y ago
  Hey there hypocrite. You have your own weight loss domains. And ever better, you have several spammy websites about online colleges. They may not be right, but neither are you.
  - Jebdm 18y ago
    Evidence?
    - jsteele 18y ago
      These are all just restructured wiki articles. Not selling anything yet, though probably eventually going up for sale since there's no other plausible reason for their existance. http://abutterdish.com/ http://abutterdish.com/ http://bodyfatgone.com/ http://bodyfatgone.com/ Also owns Affiliatehunt.com if there was any doubt he's an affiliate. He has a fair number of domains so I'm not going to list them all. They're pretty much all the same thing as those 2 though. There's a few like http://degreeaccess.com/ http://degreeaccess.com/ that are just markoved text. I'm not going to out any real domains, but those are enough to get the idea.
jacquesm 18y ago
Did you contact facebook directly about this ? I'd be very interested in their response, if any.
- andrewljohnson 18y ago
  I contacted a friend within Facebook, so hopefully the word will trickle up.
tallanvor 18y ago
Facebook has done a horrible job with their ads. --Most of the ones they show me are in Norwegian. I may live in Norway, but I don't speak Norwegian (yet), so the ads will never be relevant to me.
- beingfamous 18y ago
  Facebook ads have always been relevant to me. Just this weekend, I was browsing profiles on Facebook, and the ads were all, "DO YOU NEED A GIRLFRIEND?" Totally targeted.
  - joeyo 18y ago
    That level of targeting is actually kind of creepy, in my opinion. Try changing your status from in a relationship to single or vice-versa and see what kind of adverts you get. (Never mind what your privacy settings are...)
    - gaius 18y ago
      The day after my birthday the text of the ads changed from '32 and still single?' to '33 and still single?' - that's just mocking me :-(
      - il 18y ago
        heh those were probably my ads
- crk 18y ago
  Facebook ads annoy me, because no amount of negative ad feedback seems to stop the deluge of diet, wedding, diamond, or diaper ads. The wedding planning ads are particularly annoying, since my relationship status is set to married.
callmeed 18y ago
My wife got duped by an ad on Facebook (they also advertise on MySpace, which is worse IMO). This particular ad links to one of several duplicate/fake blogs touting a dietary supplement and then linking to a free-trial. If you don't cancel before the end of the 14-day trial (by phone), you are charged $89 (for a supplement that costs $7 at a health food store). Of course, no one answers the phone number you must call to cancel. It took a lot of paperwork with my bank to get the charges refunded–quite a pain. It's a well-known scam and my wife takes much of the blame for not doing the proper due-diligence ... however, I think FB and MySpace would be wise to screen their advertisers better. We did submit the info to FB and were told they would "look into it"
davi 18y ago
Some crazy comments getting left there... Are these people for real? How did they see the post? Is it getting attention anywhere besides Hacker News?
- netcan 18y ago
  Yeah, seems crazy. Fake? Couldn't actually be the scammers getting cranky, could it?
  - donaq 18y ago
    I very much suspect that is the case. One of them even said something like "you're getting a free service, so stfu and let facebook and I line our pockets".
- jonknee 18y ago
  Maybe YouTube got ahold of it. Seems like similar commenters.

eli 18y ago

They say Facebook will do anything to monetize its traffic - even scam its users. Well, they say to me that Facebook ads ain't worth squat and advertisers know it.

gaius 18y ago
Which is weird because FB knows a lot about you and can target its ads perfectly. I mostly get ads for stuff related to things in my interests/activities (e.g. diving/snowboarding shops, geek stuff) and dating services (since I am listed as single). But occasionally I see one that's completely off the wall, there's no need for it really. I just downvote them, if everyone did the same they'd disappear.
- electromagnetic 18y ago
  I get a lot of bizarre adverts on FB. I'm listed as married and I get ads for dating services, also I get ads asking if I want to make $80/hr and crap like that. Ironically I never got any diet pill adverts and I'm possibly their perfect market right now since I gained a lot of holiday weight.
  - jseifer 18y ago
    Well, they say something like 35% of people on dating sites are married so that might have something to do with that. Personally, I use GreaseMonkey scripts to hide the ads on Facebook.
- eli 18y ago
  The conventional wisdom is that big ad agencies don't want their clients' ads get stuck next to a picture of you puking at a party.
  - gaius 18y ago
    Well, yes and no. It depends on the product I guess. They just need to be smart and include (say) the name of the album or the caption of the photo in their ad targeting algorithm.

jwesley 18y ago

Yea, those grant offers are run by affiliate marketers. It's a major scam. Basically they offer to send you information on grants for the cost of shipping (like $4.99 or so) and then charge your credit card for $90 a couple weeks later. FB banned diet related scams from their ad programs a few weeks ago, so I'd expect them to ban these types of offers as well once the word gets out. These types of scams are the internet's dirty little secret. Google, Yahoo, et al have no problem letting people advertise them either.

callmeed 18y ago
FB banned diet related scams from their ad programs a few weeks ago, Do you have any links on this? I'm seeing more and more info about the scams ... just wondering if FB has issued an official statement.
- jwesley 18y ago
  This thread on WickedFire mentions the post on HN and predicts Grants offers with soon be banned too: http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate-marketing/50846-get-your-grant-ads-now.html http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate-marketing/50846-get-your... It was on the same forum I read about diet offers getting banned. I don't think there was any official statement by Facebook on the matter.
jsteele 18y ago
Hey there hypocrite. You have your own weight loss domains. And ever better, you have several spammy websites about online colleges. They may not be right, but neither are you.
- Jebdm 18y ago
  Evidence?
  - jsteele 18y ago
    These are all just restructured wiki articles. Not selling anything yet, though probably eventually going up for sale since there's no other plausible reason for their existance. http://abutterdish.com/ http://abutterdish.com/ http://bodyfatgone.com/ http://bodyfatgone.com/ Also owns Affiliatehunt.com if there was any doubt he's an affiliate. He has a fair number of domains so I'm not going to list them all. They're pretty much all the same thing as those 2 though. There's a few like http://degreeaccess.com/ http://degreeaccess.com/ that are just markoved text. I'm not going to out any real domains, but those are enough to get the idea.

jacquesm 18y ago

Did you contact facebook directly about this ? I'd be very interested in their response, if any.

andrewljohnson 18y ago
I contacted a friend within Facebook, so hopefully the word will trickle up.

tallanvor 18y ago

Facebook has done a horrible job with their ads. --Most of the ones they show me are in Norwegian. I may live in Norway, but I don't speak Norwegian (yet), so the ads will never be relevant to me.

beingfamous 18y ago
Facebook ads have always been relevant to me. Just this weekend, I was browsing profiles on Facebook, and the ads were all, "DO YOU NEED A GIRLFRIEND?" Totally targeted.
- joeyo 18y ago
  That level of targeting is actually kind of creepy, in my opinion. Try changing your status from in a relationship to single or vice-versa and see what kind of adverts you get. (Never mind what your privacy settings are...)
  - gaius 18y ago
    The day after my birthday the text of the ads changed from '32 and still single?' to '33 and still single?' - that's just mocking me :-(
    - il 18y ago
      heh those were probably my ads
crk 18y ago
Facebook ads annoy me, because no amount of negative ad feedback seems to stop the deluge of diet, wedding, diamond, or diaper ads. The wedding planning ads are particularly annoying, since my relationship status is set to married.

callmeed 18y ago

My wife got duped by an ad on Facebook (they also advertise on MySpace, which is worse IMO). This particular ad links to one of several duplicate/fake blogs touting a dietary supplement and then linking to a free-trial. If you don't cancel before the end of the 14-day trial (by phone), you are charged $89 (for a supplement that costs $7 at a health food store). Of course, no one answers the phone number you must call to cancel. It took a lot of paperwork with my bank to get the charges refunded–quite a pain. It's a well-known scam and my wife takes much of the blame for not doing the proper due-diligence ... however, I think FB and MySpace would be wise to screen their advertisers better. We did submit the info to FB and were told they would "look into it"

davi 18y ago

Some crazy comments getting left there... Are these people for real? How did they see the post? Is it getting attention anywhere besides Hacker News?

netcan 18y ago
Yeah, seems crazy. Fake? Couldn't actually be the scammers getting cranky, could it?
- donaq 18y ago
  I very much suspect that is the case. One of them even said something like "you're getting a free service, so stfu and let facebook and I line our pockets".
jonknee 18y ago
Maybe YouTube got ahold of it. Seems like similar commenters.