On Aug. 8, 2024, I received a Meta Business Support scam email falsely claiming to come from Meta, displaying the subject line, “Action Required: Ad Compliance Issue and Appeal Process.” The email address showed as coming from noreply@campaign.eventbrite.com with the “reply-to” address theedeevil123@gmail.com. The message displayed security details including a “mailed by” website of bounce.eventbrite.com and a “signed by” page for campaign.eventbrite.com.
To be completely clear, this purported Meta Business Support email message claiming action is required for “ad compliance” and “appeal process” reasons is a scam. This is not a legitimate message from Meta.
My name is Jordan Liles. This page, JordanLiles.com, is my personal website where I publish reporting in addition to my daily work as a Senior Reporter with Snopes.com. I research scams and have slowly but surely become knowledgeable of how many of the misleading or fraudulent online schemes operate.
The Meta Business Support ‘Ad Compliance Issue’ Scam Email
The scam email read as follows:
Meta Notifications
Hello Admin,
This message is from Facebook.
We’ve noticed that your recent ad doesn’t quite meet our advertising standards. To keep our platform safe and welcoming for everyone, please take a moment to review our guidelines and make any necessary updates to your ad.
If you’re confident that your ad adheres to our policies, you can appeal the decision by clicking the “Confirm” button below. Our team will review your appeal and get back to you soon.
…
Please note that repeated issues with our advertising policies could lead to the suspension of your advertising account.
Thank you for your cooperation and for helping us maintain a positive advertising experience.
Best regards,
The Support Team
Other than the email addresses and security details, another red flag the message did not originate from Meta was the mailing address in the footer. That mailing address read, “Meta Business Support. 123 Main Street, California, California 89414 U.S.”
The Scam Website Linked in the Meta Business Support Email
This scam email’s link redirected users to finally land on the dangerous phishing website fb-compliance-check.vercel.app. Readers can safely view the scam website in this archived version of the page.
The fb-compliance-check.vercel.app scam website pretends to belong to Meta and Facebook. However, scammers operate the page. The page requests a user’s name, phone number, email address and Facebook password.
In other words, these scammers looked to obtain improper access to users’ Facebook accounts.
BBB Advice on Meta Business Support Scam
On Aug. 16, 2023, the U.S. Better Business Bureau published an article displaying the headline, “BBB Scam Alert: New Facebook phishing scam scares page owners into sharing their password.”
The BBB story featured the four tips regarding how to avoid falling for Facebook phishing scams.
First, don’t panic. Always read through suspicious emails carefully. Look for signs of a scam before you act. Remember scammers love to target social media accounts, so fake alerts aren’t uncommon.
Second, verify the claims. Log into your Facebook account directly to verify whether or not there is a problem before deciding how to proceed.
Third, always log into your account directly. Even if you think an alert might be authentic, use your social media app to log in or enter the URL in the browser bar by typing it, not by clicking on a link sent to you.
Fourth, guard your login credentials. Don’t ever enter your login information on a third-party website or a page other than the official Facebook website. Never send your login credentials to someone via email or Facebook Messenger. If you entered your login details into a fake form, change your password immediately.
For a final tip, I’ll add to always examine the “from” area in email messages. Tap on arrows to expand that area of a message, in order to view more details.
If readers have remarks or questions, please add them in the comments section below.
How to Submit Scams to JordanLiles.com
If you see a scam online, please submit it to me via my contact page. Please include information that will help me find the scam on my own. For example, if you see a scam on Facebook, try to copy the text of the post. Also, grab links to not just the post but also the page hosting the post.