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Comment by RajT88 | Hacker News Reader

I get downvoted for saying this every time I post it here, but a huge number of facebook adverts are scams of various sorts.

Some are as you say - you order something and never receive it. Straight up

Some are fast fashion companies which get spun up quickly with slick ads and websites, which are somehow "going out of business" even though they were registered less than 2 months ago.

Some are kickstarters for products which obviously are just clones of other products which already are ubiquitous.

A lot are drop shippers who use slick ads to sell you something they aren't even in possession of, at 2-3x the price which you could get it for if you just took the time to look elsewhere.

View on HN

"Sadly, we're closing our shop... :( The whole inventory is 80% off while the stocks last."

Oldest trick in the book.

Back in the day, you'd see some semi-truck park in a lot and then two dudes with thick AF Southern accents would get out and tell people they tried to deliver all these items to the warehouse, but the warehouse refused the shipment (insert various reasons why) and they can't go back to Ken-tuck-yee without getting rid of it all.

They said they're selling (furniture, electronics, clothing, art) it all for 80-90% off retail. You know, just so they get it off the truck and get back home. I remember working in a commercial area and the owner of the business would come and tell the guys to GTFO their property so they'd pull out and then pull into the next driveway over and rinse and repeat until they were out of the area.

It was a total scam though. My boss bought some couch and said it started falling apart after a few months. I'm not sure these guys had stolen all the stuff, or if the truck got hijacked our what, but during the Summer it was a regular thing that happened a few times every month.

I'd be interested to find out if anybody else remembers these "truck load" scams in the late 90's early aughts.

There's a truck I've seen that sells meat at stupidly low prices, but they're sold in boxes so you don't really know what you're getting.

They'll sell you a box of 20 ribeye steaks for only $40, but you open the box and realize that each "steak" is only about 1/4 inch thick and is absolute dog-food level marbling, completely zero intra-muscular fat.

I bought two of the “white van speakers” in the late 80s. They were unexceptional but okay and lasted 5+ years of heavy college and immediately post-college usage.

The last of those is at least a value-added service for some people.

I don't really see it as a scam:

* I see an ad that says "do you want to buy this item for this price?"

* If I like the price, I can buy the item. I got what was promised.

The fact that maybe I could have bought the same item elsewhere for less doesn't make it a scam. Lots of things are offered at different prices in different places at the same time. That's not a scam.

I think you were replying to my original comment.

It's not a capital 'S' scam in a legal sense, but it's a scam in that they are playing a trick on you by jacking the price way up and relying on your ignorance to make the sale at an inflated price.

If we consider a door-to-door salesman who is selling (say) basic Android phones in retirement communities where hypothetically some folks have never used a smartphone, they might get away with selling a $100 basic phone for $1000. That's not illegal, but it surely is a scam in the ethical sense.

Did you perhaps reply to the wrong comment? I completely agree.

yes, they fit this pattern exactly. I only discovered this issue after being scammed. There are hundreds of people for example who got scammed by a company advertising dolphin blankets, as described by reddit users who where victims of it, and the adverts and company have still not been taken down by FB.

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