Model is extremely effective: take a quiz and enter your phone number to find out the results. The only problem is that once you enter your phone number you’ll be charged $20 a week. The quiz is not actually hosted on Facebook though. Instead, users will view the advertisements on applications like the “How Well Do You Know Me?” application. The developers of the application (and the collaborating ad network) have cleverly embedded advertisements that fit well with the application.
There is a legitimate purpose of the “How Well Do You Know Me? ” application but the ads aren’t as legitimate. Some of the ad networks have come under fire recently for serving up the misleading advertisements. As I wrote back in March, one ad network was forced to payout $500,000 in a settlement. Essentially that settlement has simply become part of the cost of doing business though.
There is a legitimate purpose of the “How Well Do You Know Me? ” application but the ads aren’t as legitimate. Some of the ad networks have come under fire recently for serving up the misleading advertisements. As I wrote back in March, one ad network was forced to payout $500,000 in a settlement. Essentially that settlement has simply become part of the cost of doing business though.
Typically this news wouldn’t have frustrated me because it is a widely known dirty practice among some of the top advertisers. The “How Well Do You Know Me?” application has over 24 million monthly active users though so I know that thousands of individuals have been impacted by these scams. One of those happened to be my mother who called me up the other day to tell me that she had a $25 fee on her phone that was a result on clicking on one of the application advertisements.
"I have not heard any complaints or issues about advertisement scams from friends in Facebook but this is a thing to be aware of."
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