Combating E-Commerce Scams and Account Takeover Attacks

As part of our ongoing efforts to keep people safe and combat abuse of our ad platform, we filed two separate legal actions today against the perpetrators of online scams who violated our Terms and Advertising Policies.   

In the first case, the defendants are a California marketing company and its agents responsible for a bait-and-switch advertising scheme on Facebook. In the second case, the defendants are a group of individuals located in Vietnam who got users to self-compromise their Facebook accounts and ran millions of dollars of unauthorized ads. 

Our first lawsuit is against N&J USA Incorporated, Mohit Melwani, and Vishaal Melwani, who ran deceptive ads on Facebook that promoted the sale of merchandise such as clothing, watches and toys. When someone clicked on one of these ads, they were redirected to third-party e-commerce websites to complete their purchase. After paying for an item, users either never received anything or received merchandise that was different or of a lesser quality than what had been advertised. 

In an effort to conceal their bait-and-switch scheme on Facebook, the defendants blocked and concealed user complaints and negative reviews on their Facebook Pages. Facebook previously disabled several of the defendants’ accounts and Pages. This action is one of Facebook’s first lawsuits against this type of bait-and-switch scheme and builds on our prior actions against e-commerce abuse.

Leave a Comment