I’ve been seeing a new trend in Facebook Ads the last few years, and especially this calendar year.
I started noticing it in 2020.
Customers were coming into the store, having purchased this AWESOME DEAL on patio furniture online, after clicking on a Facebook ad. The ad said it from Home Depot. The page looked like Home Depot’s site, the emails said they were from Home Depot. And the final email said to pick up their purchase at the local store!
There was just one little tiny problem. Neither the ads, website, or the emails were from anyone at Home Depot. The actual website address wasn’t HD’s, the email addresses weren’t from HD.
Most of these folks didn’t have a screenshot of the ad they’d clicked on. And I have no clue if they were able to get their money back.
Beginning of this summer I had a customer come in looking for “the raised bed kit you have on sale”. After a bit of back and forth, with me insisting we don’t have a raised bed kit on sale, he pulls out his phone, opens up his FB app, and right there front and center is the advertisement. With the link out clearly showing it wasn’t an HD page, even though the big bold print said Home Depot.
Oddly enough none of these ads were coming across MY feed. I was seeing plenty of scam ads, but none of these spoofed pages. But the last few months I started noticing a new trend in the scam ads, and that was the scammers were hacking actual real business pages (small medical practices appear to be popular), and placing scam ads via those pages. Then just the last few weeks, I apparently clicked on something that told FB I wanted to buy postage stamps. Suddenly my FB page was filled with scam pages selling fake forever stamps. Yay.
Yesterday however I got my first fake Lowes ad, and then another, and another.
You’ll notice that the profile image isn’t Lowes, and the website listed isn’t Lowes. Here’s the actual page that the ad is from:
Betting thats a hacked page.
I failed to get a screenshot of the page this next one is from, but still, can you spot the problems:
Or here, the ad, and the website it went to when I clicked through:
Just a heads up, if someone is selling a Honda Inverter Gen, new, for under $900, run far and fast and don’t give them your info.