Facebook is Promoting Get Rich Quick Schemes

Statistics show that most users on Facebook pay absolutely no attention to the advertisements that are on the site. People who have advertised on the site have reported that the click-through rates they are seeing are a fraction of one percent, much lower than just about anywhere else on the web. Apparently Facebook isn’t paying terribly close attention to the advertisements that they are allowing on their site either. If you happen to take a glance over at the Facebook ads, you’ll find that they are promoting a number of “get rich quick” schemes which are almost certainly fraudulent.

One advertisement, for a website called get-money-online.com tells users that they can “make $1000 daily.” The ad has a picture of a scantily clad woman holding several one-hundred dollar bills. It also has a tag line of “And learn to impress the ladies! Learn to get RICH now!”. Well, I don’t know about you, but, I’m sold!

If you click through the ad, you’ll see a pitch for a “Google Money Kit” and a check for $5,300 from Google’s AdSense service. Interestingly enough, the ad is clever enough to figure out your geographic location and pretend to be from your area. By browsing to the ad, it tells the story of a “Ken Peters” from “Sioux Falls, SD” (my home city). However, when visiting it from a proxy-service, he’s suddenly from “Crownsville, MD” (the location of the proxy server. I guess they figure that people will be more likely to believe the story if it’s about someone in their home town.

Another ad with the title of “Make $75/hour part-time” and a tag of “Read and learn about how people like you make $50-90/hr online. Start making money today,” links to a very similar looking website with a similar story. The picture of the check is of a slightly different size and tells the story of a man named “Dante Miller.” Interestingly enough “Dante Miller” and “Ken Peters” have the exact-same story, word for word about how they “got rich with Google.” J

Facebook does offer a chance for users to “report” ads that are misleading, offensive or pornographic. It seems that either Facebook isn’t paying attention to those user reports or that users are simply not submitting them to begin with, since approximately 50% of the ads are for misleading or very-spammy products and services that no one would seek out on their own. It appears that even the Washington Post has taken notice.