Facebook Ads still peddling scammy websites

We reported last February that Facebook weren’t properly vetting their sponsored ads since many were leading to spammy supplement websites. And things don’t seem to have improved much.

The sponsored ads that appear on the right hand side of your Facebook newsfeed are one of the primary ways Facebook make money. Basically, Facebook get paid to serve you – the user – those adverts.

And one might think that the largest social networking website in the world may have some duty of care to their users to perhaps ensure that the companies getting advertised via the sponsored ads conform to some kind of ethical standard.

But no, it appears not. Last year spammy get-ripped-quick websites were all over the sponsored ads selling “miracle dietary supplements” entwined in hard-to-cancel, hidden-charges-galore subscriptions.

And now after a quick revisit to the business end of Facebook’s revenue model it didn’t take us long to find miracle dietary supplements being peddled within the sponsored ads section this time.

Take a look at the advert below.

For those non-UKians, Denise Welch is an English actress and presenter. The advert and link appears to take you to www.express.co.uk, a UK online tabloid paper. But on Facebook appearances can apparently be deceiving.

The link actually takes you to a website called www.inhealthtodaymagazine.com (see screenshot below). Just like the health supplement scams this is just a scam website (created last month) that attempts to peddle miracle supplements by disguising itself as a reputable brand.

Click practically anywhere on that site and you’re taken to the typical sign-up page of a site peddling something branded as Ketone Ultima that is designed and executed the same way as hundreds of other supplement scams past and present and is certainly a site you don’t want to be dealing with. Unless you enjoy having hidden and reoccurring charges to your bank account, that is.

To add insult to injury, Denise Welch will almost certainly be completely unaware that her image is being used to peddle these products and is unlikely to be impressed that Facebook are facilitating such sites.

Facebook have been very punitive of software that allows users to hide the advertisements from their newsfeed, like the popular FBPurity. Yet Facebook seem to be doing little about the scammy adverts that appear on their website.

So it appears that Facebook are still taking a rather blasé approach to their sponsored ad vetting process. But it’s okay, after all it’s only their users being put at risk…

Seen a scammy Facebook Sponsored Ad? Send a screenshot to us at feedback [at] thatsnonsense [dot] com and we’ll add it to our Facebook Hall of Shame!