Facebook Fraud on the Rise!
In recent months, the economic downturn has been something nearby everyones ear, be it radio, TV, word of mouth, or otherwise. It seems though that the scams will continue and for quite some time during the credit crunch.
Helping criminal fraudsters since the economic downturn
We ask ourselves in wonder, and quickly state “Facebook? Fraud? No, no, no. They have safeguards and vetting for such ads”. You’d be correct, but for some reason Facebook are quite happy letting countless hundreds of fraudsters access 15.4 million people per ad. This is clearly unnacceptable and presents yet again another dangerous trend in irresponsible business practices online.
Now, as we know the CMA (Computer Misuse Act) is a internationally widely misunderstood and misinterpreted legislation, and often revised to meet a changing need of regulations to prevent both criminal and civil crimes being committed with the use of computer and internet technology. There has always been a grey area in which fraudsters are able to hide and operate almost entirely with impunity. Frankly though, we feel a public outcry is the only response deserved for Facebook profiteering from fraudsters. A symbiosis of association is quite illegal, with or without knowledge (criminal). I believe a strong case can and will be put forward by myself or some other party to ensure that such phenomena cannot repeat itself.
Facebook clearly state they have a filtering/vetting system. Perhaps they could state why they are allowing organised crime to be advertised on their site to their users? See how much facebook cares about their users? Only as much as the monetization, it seems, it’s not cheap to run facebook. Infact when talking about facebook user ROI they will refer to it in pence.. however the real cost to us from fraudsters can reach the hundreds of thousands. Obviously customer value and monetization are clearly mutually exclusive goals. Something of which either requires massive addressing via the CMA, or other currently existing legislations to remove organised crime by association.
A dangerous criminal-commercial symbiosis has formed where commercial entities are prepared to turn a blind eye to clearly illegal pyramid or matrix schemes. Often refered to as scams!
Often in such schemes the scammer will have a website that noticeably has no Google Index, Alexa Rank, backlinks, yahoo rank, msn rank. Infact I and others could go as far to blame the user for being soppy and not checking such blisteringly obvious things. Question though, how mainstream is facebook? How many people on facebook are technicians? It’s a good question, and quickly explains the Beeb’s recent interest in the story about rising frauds related crime since the economic downturn. Also, often the scammer will insist he had recently no options left, no job or promise of success and that *his* scheme, for instance “Gmoney” or “google money” works and generates thousands of $. Also a “free” pack will be offered, always requiring the user to give their creditcard details or a monetary payment of somekind for the “postage”. Often the user may be charged more than the postage list price quoted by said scammer. More often than not that money is lost due to the embarassment of being had, or rather simply because they were desperate and spent their last crumbs on something silly, and have better things to do than trying to get a few dollar, or a few hundred dollars back.
First of all it should be clear that people who use terms like “google will make you money” is pretty disassociative, they are clearly stepping back and saying - “hey google will make you rich” but giving you a clear impression it’s their work, and their “book/starter kit” will tell you everything you need to know to make money on google. Well here’s the wakeup call. Google will tell you everything you need how to make money on google, because they did it first! It’s everywhere: strategies, tutorials, guides, SEO, this stuff already exists, it’s free! And not everyone makes money on it AT ALL. Success ISN’T assured! Losing ones money usually is, especially in matrix schemes. Moreso in Pyramid schemes, and an outright guarantee from someone claiming you can make a personal fortune via google with their help!! Lies, and the same old stories resurface every few years in mainstream media, for instance recently with the economic downturn.
Another great prank is pictures of fancy cars, beautiful women, their children and them, pretending to be a single father/mother. Remeber, scammers are experts in human psychology , social networking, espionate and
Promises that are too good to be true are what they say on the tin.
It’s easy to become involved in one of these schemes, the specific rise and targeting of facebook since the downturn can simply be labeled as a fraudsters exploitation, but how far does the exclusivity of that exploitation go? How far do the responsibilities of the content provider go as to crime? Actually, facebook could indeed be responsible for allowing criminals to use their content for ads network. Google have faced similar suits where their responsibility to patents, trademarks or misleading/fraudulent adverts as well as their users have been instilled by international courts. Facebook is still pretty fresh so it will be interesting to see how badly they are hit with the bad news they’ve been caught red handed, with their pants down, allowing criminal fraudsters to impress upon their entire userbase… if this is not a crime then it can only be pure and simple ignorance, stupidity and/or greed.
Facebook wake up! For gods sake! For your users sake!
One such Ad on facebook today:
The scammer href/link for the facebook ad:
