Facebook to shutdown fake clothing store pages scamming users

The social network giant Facebook is all out to prevent its users from becoming targets of malicious actors’ scam campaigns

It has been identified by consumers that there are certain ads and pages that are actually scam campaigns and users are worried that the clothing ads on Facebook don’t really sell clothes at unbelievably low prices but compromise their computers instead.

As is human nature, users are instantly attracted to such ads that offer exquisite outfits ate extremely low rates, so, they are bound to click on the link thinking that Facebook has set really high standards for ads that appear on its platform and is, therefore, safe to visit the site.

Users who could not get the clothes they got impressed with reported about the horrific outcomes of clicking on such malicious links.

Understandably, Facebook is not at all happy with this trend and has decided to take matters in hand and start crackdown against such deceptive scam campaigns. Facebook’s Ads and Pages vice president Andrew Bosworth told BuzzFeed that:

“One of our most important goals with Facebook ads is to present experiences that are relevant and high-quality. We understand the gravity of this issue and we’re taking it very seriously.”

Bossworth further added that the social network was looking for ways to incorporate new signals, which will help in identifying “which of the over 50 million active businesses on our platform are delivering products and services that are overwhelmingly unsatisfactory to people.”

In response to the report from Buzzfeed, Bossworth noted that: “as you pointed out in the piece – the challenge isn’t just with ads or posts on Facebook, but also the experiences people have with businesses off of Facebook. It’s a complex problem, but we are working on it and will do everything we can to make sure people trust and enjoy the content they see on Facebook.”

Initially, it was reported that various websites were involved in providing people with malicious scams instead of the promised clothing. These included RoseWe, TideBuy, Zaful, SammyDress, Choies, Dresslily, RoseWe and Rosegal. The pictures that appear on the ads have been stolen from various platforms and are, therefore, fake.

Most of these companies were associated with a globally renowned Chinese e-commerce firm ShenZhen Global Egrow E-Commerce Co. Ironically, the company raked in around $200 million from sales in 2014.

Affected victims have created pages on Facebook to spread the word about their plight. These communities are titled KnockOff Nightmares, Ban DressLily and DressLily victims.