Comments on: What is Facebook Thinking?

By: Bacon Bits

Bacon Bits — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:32:41 +0000

These offers are pretty scammy. The fine print of the weight loss trials and teeth whitening stipulate that you will be charged somewhere in the neighborhood of $90 per month after your 15 day trial is over. Even consumers that call have a terrible time canceling orders.

The practice is called credit cramming, I found an interesting article about it here: http://www.creditchimp.com/2009/04/credit-card-disasters-cramming-companies/

By: waffles

waffles — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:57:49 +0000

Hey Not Kevin – I too have read those convert2media boards. What strikes me is that they don’t even seem to care how the money is made… It’s as if they disassociate themselves from the actual scam part of it and just consider themselves affiliates making money. Sort of like the guys who drop bombs from airplanes and never really see the damage they cause.

By: Not Kevin

Not Kevin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:08:21 +0000

Interesting article here by one of the CPA ad networks giving tips to their publishers/affilaites on how to get ads onto Facebook: http://www.convert2media.com/blog/2008/06/24/tip-tuesday-using-social-media-as-an-advertising-source/

Yes, this is one of those CPA networks who promotes the acai trial offers etc:
http://www.convert2media.com/blog/2008/12/15/6-new-offers-and-33-email-submits/
http://www.convert2media.com/forum/index.php?topic=70.0

And the grant scams, and the teeth whitening:
http://www.convert2media.com/forum/index.php?topic=108.0

And this explains the flood of ads on Facebook:
“Facebook has lifted a lot of restrictions allowing Affiliates to flourish right now so I want to get some ideas over to you.”
http://www.convert2media.com/forum/index.php?topic=98.0

Not to mention our old favourites:
Google Money System
Google Money Tree
Earn Cash From Google
http://www.convert2media.com/forum/index.php?topic=111.0

and many more, including the fake IQ quiz:
http://www.convert2media.com/forum/index.php?board=5.0

By: Joanna

Joanna — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:23:28 +0000

I click the thumbs-down on the Facebook ads. When it asks for the reason, I click “other” and enter:

“Scam!” followed by the URL of the relevant page on this blog. Thanks for your diligent work in the public interest!

By: Sam Deeks

Sam Deeks — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:02:24 +0000

I totally agree, Waffles – have been blogging about it in a rage today. The trouble is that the people with the power to do something about this don’t begin to understand what’s going on.

By: waffles

waffles — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:31:52 +0000

Hey Not Kevin – Facebook has taken the high road, so they claim. They only have a couple of unintrusive ads on the side… with Obama holding up a check or for mail order brides. If that’s the best they can do, they may as well turn on all the dials and make that billion while they can.

By: Not Kevin

Not Kevin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:43:58 +0000

Another crappy Facebook ‘make money with Google’ ad here: http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com/blog/index.php/facebook-ads-crappy-relevance/#comment-894

Interesting quote from Facebook in this newspaper article: “And while Twitter’s money-making potential has been under closer scrutiny, Facebook too is focused on ‘improving its product’ rather than ‘doing a MySpace’ and flooding the site with ads. If it did that, Thiel said, it could make as much as $1bn a year from advertising if it “turned on all the dials”.”
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/mar/02/twitter-facebook

Would like to know how Facebook thinks these seedy scammy ads are “improving it’s product” and would hate to think what Facebook would look like if it “turned on all the dials”!!