Avoid Sponsored Ads on Facebook

Have you ever searched for something on Google and then visited Facebook (FB) and was surprised to see ads targeting what you just searched? I'm sure you have, since it happens to me all the time.

Back in December two of these targeted ads actually lured me in, and I bought the products. A month later I didn't have either, so I looked into it. The companies sent me tracking info, which assured me that both packages were delivered. I was shocked, thinking how unlikely it would be that both would have been stolen from my porch.

I then remembered getting two small packages with items I didn't order. Luckily, I set those aside instead of throwing them away. I compared the tracking numbers to the numbers provided by the companies. Imagine my surprise when they matched.

Yes, this is a scam, and the companies are usually in China. They send small, light items to keep their shipping costs low, but they always make sure the package has a tracking number. In order to get your money back, you have to return what they sent before they will refund. The problem is that the cost can sometimes be prohibitive, and there is no tracking in China if shipped from the US.

You might luck out and get your money back, but these scam companies are hoping their customers won't realize what happened and won't fight it. I am not one of those people and fought both. It took me two months, but I got my money back. Of course I'm out the postage for one of the returns, but I am now wiser. I will never again order through an ad on FB. There will be no three strikes you're out with me.

To make matters worse, let's revisit how those ads are so specific. At first I thought it was Facebook's ability to harvest the search results from our browsers, but it's deeper than that. All my computers are linked through my wi-fi router. I work from home and have a laptop that is exclusively for work, and a computer that is exclusively personal.

A few weeks ago I didn't recognize a store for one of my clients, so I did a search for that store to determine if it was business or personal. While I use Chrome on both my work laptop and my home computer, both use completely different emails to sign in. So imagine my surprise when I went to my personal computer to check FB, and one of the sponsored ads was for the exact same product being sold at the store I had searched for on my work laptop. Before you can ask, this product was unique and something I would never need or use at this stage of my life.

The only thing tying these two computers together is the wi-fi. Logic dictates that somehow FB has figured out how to harvest search results from our routers and not just our browsers. I don't know about you, but that invasion of privacy worries me.

What's the solution? Well, I now use Chrome in incognito while on my work laptop. Not all the time, of course, only when I need to search for something or when privacy is needed for work. If you're not sure how to go incognito on Chrome, press the <ctrl>, <shift> & N at the same time.

The second solution is to use caution before buying from a FB ad. I usually go to Amazon to compare prices. Before December I always ended up buying the product there. I guess my lesson on this is if you click a FB ad and then can only find it more expensive on Amazon, the FB ad is a scam. If it seems too good to be true, chances are it is. So either buy the product on Amazon, buy it locally or wait to see if it goes on sale.

The final solution is to make sure you know where the product is being mailed from before you order. If it's coming from China, run away screaming.