Hmmm... remember Meta?

[RandomLurker]

I do EBay, Amazon

... themselves full of shady merchants.  Even direct-only is getting sketchy: I recently purchased off a name-brand's own site, who forwarded it to an Amazon merchant for fulfillment!  Goods arrived a week late but at least I got them.

Brick-and-mortar just indeed may make a comeback with what online has become. Saving that x percent online saves nothing when the purchase doesn't arrive and/or your card gets hacked.

[KrustyKrab]

... themselves full of shady merchants.  Even direct-only is getting sketchy: I recently purchased off a name-brand's own site, who forwarded it to an Amazon merchant for fulfillment!  Goods arrived a week late but at least I got them.

Brick-and-mortar just indeed may make a comeback with what online has become. Saving that x percent online saves nothing when the purchase doesn't arrive and/or your card gets hacked.

As much as a pia it can be, I have a recourse of action thru eBay and Amazon and try and deal with reputable companies when buying direct.  FB you have absolutely nothing.

[SurferSoul]

What I always wondered is how FB/meta made any money at all during those early years when there were no ads at all. Same with YouTube. It must have cost an absolute fortune to run those servers! 
Then I heard the FB actually started the same day the CIA’s Life Log platform was canned, coincidence or was FB actually just a rebranding and continuation of Life Log?

I recently joined FB again after 10 years of not going anywhere near it, the only improvement is the user generated interest groups, the only reason I’m back on it in fact. 
But FB knows my interests and consequently provides targeted ads. One of these was a scam that I fell for. Many scams are obvious enough but they are getting increasingly sophisticated and much more convincing! I tried to complain to FB but there isn’t really anywhere to do so. 

Like others I won’t buy through FB anymore even if it’s something I really want, I’ll just search for the same thing elsewhere. The OP shows that not only was FB aware of these scam ads, but they estimated their profits from them! Can anyone believe that shit? I mean shouldn’t they be getting prosecuted for that? 

The reality is it will shoot them in the foot eventually, as people stop buying things through it the advertisers will stop advertising and the revenue will fall off to nothing. 
Stupid short term gains for long term losses. Not only if it isn’t illegal (it should be, they should vet their ads as keenly as the do non pc posts) it is stupid business sense.

[Quantum12]

What I always wondered is how FB/meta made any money at all during those early years when there were no ads at all. Same with YouTube. It must have cost an absolute fortune to run those servers! 
Then I heard the FB actually started the same day the CIA’s Life Log platform was canned, coincidence or was FB actually just a rebranding and continuation of Life Log?

I recently joined FB again after 10 years of not going anywhere near it, the only improvement is the user generated interest groups, the only reason I’m back on it in fact. 
But FB knows my interests and consequently provides targeted ads. One of these was a scam that I fell for. Many scams are obvious enough but they are getting increasingly sophisticated and much more convincing! I tried to complain to FB but there isn’t really anywhere to do so. 

Like others I won’t buy through FB anymore even if it’s something I really want, I’ll just search for the same thing elsewhere. The OP shows that not only was FB aware of these scam ads, but they estimated their profits from them! Can anyone believe that shit? I mean shouldn’t they be getting prosecuted for that? 

The reality is it will shoot them in the foot eventually, as people stop buying things through it the advertisers will stop advertising and the revenue will fall off to nothing. 
Stupid short term gains for long term losses. Not only if it isn’t illegal (it should be, they should vet their ads as keenly as the do non pc posts) it is stupid business sense.

I used a FaceBook ad to buy a jacket and the company was in China it did not exist. Capital One finally gave me my money back. I wrote FB and the ad stayed for months. 

I was talking about green Dr Martin’s boots the other day. Not typing about them and I started getting Ads on FB about green Dr Martins boots and on google. This is not the first time.

[SurferSoul]

I used a FaceBook ad to buy a jacket and the company was in China it did not exist. Capital One finally gave me my money back. I wrote FB and the ad stayed for months. 

I was talking about green Dr Martin’s boots the other day. Not typing about them and I started getting Ads on FB about green Dr Martins boots and on google. This is not the first time.

I’ve ordered stuff from China before, well not exactly through eBay or Amazon but it actually comes from China and it’s been fine, no problems though I hear Temu can be hit and miss. Anyway the scam I fell for was coming from China which actually made sense as most stuff is made there and the discount didn’t seem far fetched. The thing is the scammers even had a website where I could browse “their” shop and tracking for the scam I ordered, it showed the items being shipped and arriving at various ports until finally after 30 days it had supposedly been delivered. I happened to be at home at the exact time and day of supposed delivery and there wasn’t a delivery for sure. So I went to my bank to see if I could get my money back and they said because 30 days had expired it was to late and tough luck basically.’

A harsh lesson learned for me but those scammers in China even know the 30 day rule for uk banks so it seems.

[Quantum12]

I’ve ordered stuff from China before, well not exactly through eBay or Amazon but it actually comes from China and it’s been fine, no problems though I hear Temu can be hit and miss. Anyway the scam I fell for was coming from China which actually made sense as most stuff is made there and the discount didn’t seem far fetched. The thing is the scammers even had a website where I could browse “their” shop and tracking for the scam I ordered, it showed the items being shipped and arriving at various ports until finally after 30 days it had supposedly been delivered. I happened to be at home at the exact time and day of supposed delivery and there wasn’t a delivery for sure. So I went to my bank to see if I could get my money back and they said because 30 days had expired it was to late and tough luck basically.’

A harsh lesson learned for me but those scammers in China even know the 30 day rule for uk banks so it seems.

Same! I ordered my 17 year old an iPhone from China and they pulled the same crap. Beautiful site and everything! Shipping showed up but phone never came.