This is a scam, right?

londonbridge · 21 Feb 2024

Krokodil said:
Possibly. Martin Lewis settled out of court with Facebook after his face was repeatedly used to advertise scams

That’s what I was thinking.

Makes me laugh how Facebook say “we understand that this may be frustrating”. I received a warning for violating the guidelines after using some admittedly unsavoury language to describe a group of youths who were caught vandalising a local church, with the statement “we understand mistakes happen so we didn’t restrict your account”. Was tempted to reply to them with “no, it wasn’t a mistake and you clearly don’t understand, you (expletive) idiots”….

RailUK Forums

cav1975 · 21 Feb 2024

cav1975 said:
Still coming
View attachment 152773

Well, as expected Messrs Faceboook are happy to continue to receive income from the scammers.

jon0844 · 22 Feb 2024

The ads on X now are insane too, including hardcore porn sites with embedded videos autoplaying. Good luck getting those taken down also, with the only option to just request you see less of them.

Advertising on many newspaper websites are decidedly dodgy these days. I suppose that once the established advertisers pull their ads, platforms end up taking whatever money they can get.

Even YouTube seems to be happy to append long videos from 'get rich quick' scammers promoting crypto, dropshipping or currency trading. Again, reporting is futile, so you can simply ask for less of them yourself.

How does that help the wider audience?

londonbridge · 28 Feb 2024

The GWR scam is featured in this weeks Sally Sorts It colum in the Money Mail section of todays Daily Mail, under the heading “Scam Watch”

People should beware fake train ticket adverts on Facebook that offer gift cards worth just £3 for a year of rail travel, Which? warns.

Tricksters impersonating Great Western Railway claim you can get one of the ‘limited number’ of gift cards by clicking on the advert and answering a few questions.

However, the link leads to a malicious phishing website that will trick you into handing over your personal data, according to the consumer campaign group.

Do not click on any links in the advert. Instead, select the three dots at the top right of the Facebook post and press ‘Report Ad’.

I’m just about to email the column telling them that Facebook have been made aware of these ads and are doing nothing about them.

jon0844 · 28 Feb 2024

With the current situation in the Middle East, I reported someone for offensively calling for a person to 'stop killing Jews' - implying the person was killing jews because of his ethnicity, but frankly being just as offensive if you just lumped all people together as killers.

Clearly I agreed with the sentiment of not killing Jews, but in any case - within about 30 seconds Facebook said it was fine and the post could remain. There were/are many more offensive remarks now, but I suppose the more angry a debate gets the more engagement there is which advertisers can then get in on.

cav1975 · 28 Feb 2024

londonbridge said:
The GWR scam is featured in this weeks Sally Sorts It colum in the Money Mail section of todays Daily Mail, under the heading “Scam Watch”

I’m just about to email the column telling them that Facebook have been made aware of these ads and are doing nothing about them.

It surprises me that GWR haven't taken out some form of injunction agains Facebook for facilitating impersonation.

Kite159 · 28 Feb 2024

londonbridge said:
The GWR scam is featured in this weeks Sally Sorts It colum in the Money Mail section of todays Daily Mail, under the heading “Scam Watch”

I’m just about to email the column telling them that Facebook have been made aware of these ads and are doing nothing about them.

Shame the reach of those columns is more limited these days the Daily Wail has put them behind a paywall on the website.

Falcon1200 · 28 Feb 2024

cav1975 said:
It surprises me that GWR haven't taken out some form of injunction agains Facebook for facilitating impersonation.

I reported the GWR Facebook page again, this time as masquerading as something it was not, and yet again Facebook's response was that it did not breach their advertising guidelines; It makes one wonder what would! The social media companies should not be surprised if they find themselves more strictly regulated.

duffield · 28 Feb 2024

Kite159 said:
Shame the reach of those columns is more limited these days the Daily Wail has put them behind a paywall on the website.

Their "paywall" is a joke. Highlight all of the text that you *can* see including the "faded" bit, then right-click on it, select "open in reading mode" and there you go.

Kite159 · 28 Feb 2024

duffield said:
Their "paywall" is a joke. Highlight all of the text that you *can* see including the "faded" bit, then right-click on it, select "open in reading mode" and there you go.

Or open it into a private view and hit stop as soon as the text appears, as there is normally a couple of seconds before the paywall pops up. However such workarounds work for the time being but some readers simply won't bother reading the story about how company X is being unreasonable etc.

cav1975 · 7 Mar 2024

Another version, only £2 this time

Mcr Warrior · 7 Mar 2024

Still can't understand how this sort of thing doesn't breach the particular social media company's "advertising guidelines". Clearly not fit for purpose!

Fiyero · 7 Mar 2024

cav1975 said:
Another version, only £2 this time

Glad I didn't buy the £3 one! Even more savings.

Bevan Price · 8 Mar 2024

Falcon1200 said:
I reported the GWR Facebook page again, this time as masquerading as something it was not, and yet again Facebook's response was that it did not breach their advertising guidelines; It makes one wonder what would! The social media companies should not be surprised if they find themselves more strictly regulated.

Maybe time to consider - do people really need to waste time looking at those anti-social media sites - or could they be doing something more useful?

Falcon1200 · 10 Mar 2024

Scotrail are now getting used for this scam too; 3 posts on my Facebook feed today offering the so-called Smartcard for £2.35. Reported to Facebook again, not that it will make any difference.

Bevan Price said:
do people really need to waste time looking at those anti-social media sites - or could they be doing something more useful?

I find Facebook very useful; It has multiple pages for things I am interested in! However it can be, and is, used for nefarious purposes, the annoyance is Facebook refusing to do anything about obvious scams such as the one(s) reported here.

Railsigns · 10 Mar 2024

londonbridge said:
The GWR one has popped up on Facebook again, the text mentions “places you will be able to travel to for free by winning the card” including Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, Holyhead, Glasgow and Edinburgh…….I never knew GWR served all those cities……

I saw one on Facebook for a ScotRail smartcard the other day that listed some of the cities in Scotland you can travel to, including Kelso (!) and Standrigg (????).

Falcon1200 said:
I reported the GWR Facebook page again, this time as masquerading as something it was not, and yet again Facebook's response was that it did not breach their advertising guidelines; It makes one wonder what would!

These scam ads do of course breach Facebook's advertising standards, even though they'll always tell you that they don't after you report them. Specifically, the "deceptive content" section, which begins with:

Ads must not promote products, services, schemes or offers using deceptive or misleading practices, including those meant to scam people out of money or personal information.

dgl · 11 Mar 2024

But any breach of their standards is outweighed by the advertising revenue Facebook make, I bet Facebook have a get out clause so they cannot be held responsible for the content of any ads, something no one else would get away with.

Falcon1200 · 12 Mar 2024

Facebook have today told me that they have removed the 'Scotrail' scam ad I reported as it did breach their advertising guidelines. Common sense at last!

Kite159 · 12 Mar 2024

Falcon1200 said:
Facebook have today told me that they have removed the 'Scotrail' scam ad I reported as it did breach their advertising guidelines. Common sense at last!

Cor blimey, maybe they might actually start taking things a bit more seriously with the scam adverts...

No doubt the Scotrail scam advert will re-appear in the next couple days with a couple of words changed to fool the facebook tool

pokemonsuper9 · 12 Mar 2024

I feel like the £2 or prices under £10 are way too unrealistic, bit surprised they aren't going for a more realistic price of like £50-£100, might make it less immediately noticeable.

Railsigns · 12 Mar 2024

pokemonsuper9 said:
I feel like the £2 or prices under £10 are way too unrealistic. Bit surprised they aren't going for a more realistic price of like £50-£100. Might make it less immediately noticeable.

That's probably deliberate. Scammers like these are looking for contact details of people they can target later in other scam attempts, or sell their details to other scammers. Scammers don't like to waste their time talking to people who are smart enough spot a scam a mile off, so they insert too-good-to-be-true offers, obviously wrong information and spelling errors to put them off at the first step.

londonbridge · 6 Apr 2024

After a few weeks absence (or at least just not appearing in my Facebook feed), the Oyster card post has reappeared in my feed, this time under the name “Only For London”

Falcon1200 · 6 Apr 2024

Today I had the GWR scam on Facebook again, however inflation has even affected the scammers as the 'all-stations pass' is now £3! I reported the page, again.

londonbridge · 6 Apr 2024

I’ve done the same with the one I’ve just seen, see if FB do anything about it this time.

This is a scam, right?

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