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Christmas is almost here and Christmas shopping is in full swing! You may be looking out for everything from unique gifts to decorative trees and many choose to buy these things online. Be careful, however, as the enticing ads you see on Facebook may end up dampening your Christmas spirit.
Scammers follow shopping trends closely and try to blend in with real ads. They research which products are in demand and create low-quality copies, which are then promoted using misleading ads; not just one or two, but thousands of misleading ads which reach millions of people. To get an idea of how easy it is for scammers to target enormous volumes of people, consider that a scammer needs to spend just $20 on average to reach up to 7,500,000 users.
Here are three popular Christmas-themed fake Facebook ads that pop up year after year and are still around scamming unaware Christmas shoppers.
Kristi Pimental’s Sea Glass Christmas Trees are easily among the most-scammed items on Facebook. Kristi, who is from Florida, creates each piece by hand using real seashells and sea glass.
Kristi has been facing the torment of Chinese scammers for years, as people confuse her for being a scammer even though she has no relation to the fake ads being run on Facebook. She is constantly bombarded with angry emails and messages meant for scammers from China who ship worthless plastic trees to customers.
Take a look below at a Facebook ad being run by a page called Fullofexpect-USA 20 days before Christmas. Note that there are 184 ads being run using just one image stolen from Kristi’s website.
The ad leads to fullofexpect.com which is offering sea glass Christmas trees for $29.99.
This price is simply too good to be true as the real thing costs $285!
Just how legit is Fullofexpect? Not at all, apparently. Just one click away from this page is the About Us page which reveals that the website is part of the Uniqueness Scam Network, a notorious scam ring from China.
Analyzing the text reveals that there are at least 292 related websites, all of which are of questionable trustworthiness.
Even though it is well-established that these scams originate from China, the Facebook page is deliberately obfuscating its origin by using fake virtual locations to make Facebook (and customers) think that the page is operated from the USA, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Phillippines, Russia and three unknown locations.
Does any of this prevent Facebook from denying this dubious page the right to run advertisements? Absolutely not, as their ads are still active when this article is being written even after being reported.
The Whiskey Advent Calendar Scam is another one that we have been following on Facebook for a few years now. Take a look below at the advertisements being run by pages ‘PERD’ and ‘WDMT’. Just these two pages combined are running 57 Facebook ads and there are hundreds more running hundreds of similar ads each.
Most people trust these ads because they trust Facebook. Let’s take a look at the page ‘WDMT’ which Facebook is allowing to advertise on its platform.
The advertiser ‘WDMT’ is a page with 5 likes which provides a Chinese address, a California phone number, a free email ID and directs to a website named ‘shinety.online’.
Further, the page is almost brand new as it was created on September 28, 2022 and is supposedly managed from Ecuador in South America. One logical explanation for this is that Chinese scammers may be using VPNs to hide their true location.
Despite the bouquet of red flags that ‘WDMT’ presents, Facebook is happy to take their advertising dollars. This begs the question: should you trust Facebook ads?
The ad from ‘WDMT’ leads to the website, ‘shinety.online’, but it gets even weirder as shinety.online’ then rediects to ‘persiste.online’. How legit is Persiste? Well, the owners can’t even get their own brand name right; the About Us page calls the website ‘Shopline1886’. A random Outlook email ID is provided for customer support.
Analyzing the website content reveals that there are at least 51 websites similar to Persiste, all of which are likely to be operated by the same scammers.
Now on to the actual product, which is the Whiskey Advent Calendar. This product is supposedly a collection of 30 miniature bottles of whiskey and other liquors from popular brands. The best part? It apparently only costs $29.68.
Too good to be true? You bet! Check out some reviews by people who have ordered this same item in previous years. Empty bottles and junk trinkets don’t make for a very merry Christmas.
This scam probably disappoints customers the most - The Magical Christmas Tree which isn’t magical and is barely even a tree.
Check out the ad below which promises to “use 50% of the profits to help the disabled, widowed and elderly to dress up a warm Christmas for them.” This ad is being run by a Facebook page called ‘Solitudeho-US’ and has been shared more than 3,330 times!
The page directs to a website called ‘piteize.com’, which also appears to be owned by the Uniqueness Scam Network, which means that the ‘disabled, widowed and elderly’ are not going to see a cent from the proceeds of this scam.
The images and video of the ‘Magical Christmas Tree’ have been stolen from various sources, most notable being Balsam Hill. The $39.99 Magical Christmas Tree is actually the image of a $1,300 product.
Not only have the scammers plagiarized Balsam Hill’s images, but they have also deliberately edited out the name of the brand, probably to keep vigilant shoppers from finding out the real price.
Will Piteize’s customers receive anything remotely resembling Balsam Hill’s beautiful trees? You don’t need to guess, we already know what they received:
Customers have also reported receiving depressingly bad trees and dollar store trash from similar websites:
Did you already order one of these items from a Facebook ad? Don’t worry, you can still get your money back. Depending on how you paid, contact PayPal or your bank to file a fraud report and reverse the transaction. Visit our page How To Get Your Money Back From a Scam if you need help.
Scammers are always on the lookout for new products you will come across many other Facebook ads which are equally attractive and just as scammy. Be careful, scammers are naughty, not nice!
This article has been written by a scam fighter volunteer. If you believe the article above contains inaccuracies or is missing relevant information, please contact ScamAdviser.com using this form.
