Patrick Biddiscombe breaks down the explosion of fake product scams on social media, where one in four FTC shopping complaints now start. He walks through how to spot them: verify the poster, check for HTTPS, use ScamAdviser. For businesses, he recommends reporting fakes and diversifying where you send traffic.
Questions this video answers
80%
One in four reports
94%
$34 billion
23 minutes
Chapters
Bum, bum, bum bum. Scams are here. Social commerce scams are here. Today we're talking about social commerce scams. Now, they've been around for a while, but within the last year, they've seen a historic kind of boom. A new study by cybersecurity company Checkpoint found an alarming 80% increase this year over last in malicious phishing campaigns aimed at online shoppers. One in four reports to the FTC about shopping scams began on social media, with 94% of those scams taking place on Facebook and Instagram. For those who may not know, anything having to do with online shopping through social interaction is what we like to call social commerce. Not to be confused with its father, electronic commerce. That's where you just buy something online. Think Amazon, Walmart, Staples. Social commerce is the ability to purchase a product from within a social media platform itself. Think Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. Social commerce is an industry that racked in $34 billion in 2020. It's so powerful that when Nike and Snapchat partnered up to promote and sell the air Jordan 3 Tinker after an NBA All Star game, they sold out in just 23 minutes. Leave it to Michael Jordan to even sell shoes. Perfectly. 23 minutes. That's fine. Mike, you, you good and everything, but are you better than Tory? Give me the ball. Ay, Brick. But with great gains come great losses. In the first six months of 2020, there was a reported loss of $117 million to these scams. See, within the last year, because so many of us were stuck at home, a slew of new ways to purchase online arose. But so did a problem. This flood of new people going online to shop included both experienced and extremely new shoppers. The problem was because social media is such fertile ground for being able to portray whatever, slash, whomever you want. It's become a bit of a dreamland for scammers to assume new identities and run scams by posting fake stores, ads and products. Oh my. The scammers even delete comments on their ads and posts so that negative responses don't ever show up and alert people to the very convincing sham going on. That's so dirty. That's so mean. And when I say convincing, there are a lot of new sketchy possibilities. Meet Heather Harper. Heather is a huge collector of sea glass. Loves it. Can't get enough. One day she's scrolling through a Facebook feed and comes across an ad for an amazing custom sea glass Christmas tree. Oh yeah, that's a good looking custom sea glass Christmas tree. She was reassured by the fact that she saw the ad pop up a few times. A friend of hers has shared it and it had photos of the creator actually holding the piece of she felt good about it, so she ordered three. But there was only one problem. The artist in the picture holding the tree. While it was the actual artist, the person in the picture wasn't involved with this ad at all. Someone had gone into the artist Etsy account, stole the pictures and reposted it as an ad on Facebook. So instead of getting this, she received this so the question is, if you're a consumer, how do you keep yourself safe from these scams? And if you're in marketing, creating ads in the same space as the bad guys, how do you keep up trust? It's funny you should ask, because I happen to have this this is the lifespan of a social commerce scam. There are steps you both can take along this journey that will either keep you clear from being scammed or allow you to continue to build trust for your audience customers. You're the first line of defense here. As the consumer, these three key moments are going to apply to you directly. You can stop scams before they even start by simply finding out who posted it. Always look into whether an advertiser appears legitimate. Is it a limited company? Is there an actual page or a website? If you click the website, does it have an official HTTPs and have a lock icon next to it? Is it Amazon.com or Amazon co? If you see something really convincing that you're just not sure about, check out scamadvisor.com go to the website, put in the link, and it'll tell you immediately if it's a scam or or not. Marketers. These are the key parts that you can shore up in your own process to build that trust back from an audience that may have recently gotten duped. Test and ensure clear and transparent ways for consumers on social media platforms to report scams involving your brand or your content. By educating and informing consumers to spot scams and advertisements, you'll build that trust. Don't hide the fact that these scams exist. Constantly update your audience on the biggest ones, making the rounds in your industry and what to look out for. Wait, what's wrong? Oh, I told you how to build trust with your consumers, but I didn't tell you how to protect yourself from fake ads. Is that it? I got you. A sad truth is that scams are here and they aren't going anywhere. But you can utilize some tools to measure fraud. Our best approach to digital advertising fraud is to not rely on a single channel as your main driver of traffic to your website or product. Have a diversified approach to building your digital commerce channels. This will help minimize the damage if a paid campaign isn't successful or is worse. Fake as always, that's the info. Do with it what you will. If you like what you heard and you want to hear more, subscribe and hit that bell to hear more. Adios people. Until next time. Think Facebook, Instagram, Chatpat. Chatpat Snap Pack. You guys try the newest app, Chatpat. It's the newest thing, man. Chatpat. Okay.
