Facebook Leads the Way!

Yesterday I posted the videos of the FTC Stimulus Scam Press Conference, and there's a couple of things I'd like to highlight and comment on. In this post I'll comment on some of the Facebook stuff.

Consider the following snippets, not all necessarily in order of appearance:

"We are here this morning for two reasons. First to warn consumers about two stimulus sites they should avoid and, second, to ask online media companies to monitor their sites for these scam ads and get rid of them ... We are reaching out to the industry to help us, and some are already responding ... "

"Ads touting free stimulus money were on Facebook ... On its own and after conversation from the FTC, Facebook pulled these ads ... We absolutely salute Facebook for being so proactive in this regard ..."

"We have some really responsible members of the online media community, the Facebook folks are here, and they'll be available afterwards to talk about how this can be done, how businesses can be proactive to keep these scams of their site."

Then, near the end, a certain Joe Sullivan from Facebook turns to the speaker and says:

"Thanks for recognizing our quick action here".

I never saw the need for a Facebook page of my own, but after reading about the outrage of the Facebook community, which was the main incentive for Facebook to start investigating and banning the ads in the first place, and the "hey look at at us" appearance at the FTC Stimulus Scams press conference (by invitation, no doubt, but you don't have to be schmuck about it), I created an account to do some research.

It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to see ads on Facebook, because I did not see any. The search feature helped out. My first search, after just two minutes on Facebook, using the not-so-complicated search query 'stimulus' yielded some ads on the right hand side. One of them:

Now this ad does not have a picture of Obama holding a grant check, and it does not mention the words 'stimulus' or 'Obama' but it does not take a Harvard Graduate to figure out that this is a scam ad of the same caliber. Hint for the Facebook ad review and 'security team' : Click on the ad and see where it takes you? See:

Wow, searching for Grants in Prison ... Amazing feat ... must be connected to some government database?

That check for 100K with my name on it makes me want to sign up right away...oh and keep an eye out for that lady in the lower right hand corner, we'll be seeing more of her...

The FTC press conference kept stressing the fact that most of these scamholes use the economic stimulus as a marketing gimmick to tout their grant kit scams, but what if they don't? In this case, the ad does not mention it and the site it goes to does not mention it either. Well, it is simple really:

If it does not mention the stimulus or Obama or firefighters Joe and Dan, it still is the same scam.

OK, now let's do a search that is not so obvious, I mean 'stimulus' was kinda obvious, so let's try this:
I don't blame the Facebook pro-active ad monitoring and quick action security teams for not thinking of that one ... thinking out of the box is not for everyone ... Anyway, that search gives us:

The first site at first sight is just debt relief stuff (which can also be 'fishy', but that's another topic) but on their main page the first 'additional service' they advertise is some scam grant site, so I presume the rest of what they do is of similar 'value'.

The second site pretends to be a 'grant sites review' site with a 'top three', but look at what their number one recommendation links to - this is a pure affiliate driven site with bogus 'research' info. They even have the audacity to place a 'Paypal Donate' button on their site to 'keep the site running'. This is their number one 'recommendation':


Now these are just two examples after a couple of minutes on Facebook. Not exactly rocket science.

@Facebook: Quick action, recognized by the FTC, kudos and a free lunch! Now follow through, if you please?