Edit: Another example encountered by a friend of mine has been added at the end. Related: Intellectual Property Theft.

Back in August of this year, I ordered something that looked very interesting from an ad that appeared on my facebook wall, by a company called acfantasy:

“The Grand Orrery model of the solar system depicts the correct relative orbital speeds of the planets plus relative orbital movement of Earth’s moon. Historically, a Grand Orrery showed only the “naked eye” planets out to Saturn, as they were developed in the early 18th century.”

It looked gorgeous and intricate, and I thought I would love to have this on my desk. The total charge to an outfit called “acfantasy” was $48.06.

What I received today, after a wait of two months (shipped, of course, from China) was this:

To say that I was stunned by the duplicity would be an understatement. True, I actually got something – a lot of these Chinese wankstains will take your money and not bother to ship anything at all – but sending out a cheap piece of scrap metal like this, which is not worth 49¢ let alone $49.00 is stunning in its audacity.

The company has a website (acfantasy.vip) and a contact email; I sent multiple requests for replacement with the advertised product or a full refund, but never heard anything back.

I have ordered things from Facebook ads before and been pleasantly surprised by what I would consider adequate quality and value for the money; this one certainly falls into the “Chinese businesses with all the ethics of a starving honey badger” column.

Facebook needs to do much better in vetting its advertisers. There are far too many scammers out there, about which I have written elsewhere. Despite being careful, I got burned this time. These people can sit on a very fragile glass cactus.

Edit: Sadly, I got stung again by a company called scypg, shortly after writing this; something else I had ordered before the bogus orrery had come.

Cheap-ass bait and switch. Advice found on reddit is excellent; I will definitely not purchase directly from ads found on social media any longer.

Edit: I also emailed this company several times. They finally wrote back telling me that they were sorry I had ordered the wrong product (i.e. selected the wrong option or something). I told them I didn’t. They wrote back a couple of times offering me a 15% or a 5% discount to try to keep me happy. There was no response to my last email telling them that I still wanted the advertised product or a full refund.

From Reddit, confirmed by my own experiences:

“LPT: Never buy items advertised on social media newsfeeds. The majority are either scams, bait and switch, or “Wish” quality products.

Social media sites almost never provide resolution. Instead of following the link in the ad, search for the item independently and buy from legitimate vendors.”Social media advertisements are frequently bots or institutional scams.

It typically results in:

1. Paypal scam where they charge your card multiple times and you end up having to request a new card number.
2. Bait and switch, where you follow the link for one thing and end up ordering something completely different.
3. Low quality item to begin with.

Think “wish” quality products…. Social media sites almost never rectify the issue, and often if you check back later the comments section indicate several hundred other people were scammed (and some fake reviews left as well!).

If you see something you want, search for it independently outside of social media and purchase it on a legitimate vendor. Never follow the link directly from social media.”

This was shared by a friend who got bitten by one of those between-post Facebook ads. He was supposed to get a 50-piece “Unsold Pallet from Amazon” for roughly $60.00 The implication was that there would be DeWalt, Makita or Milwaukee tools (as their photos show), and this is what came. Not a single DeWalt, Makita or Milwaukee tool to be seen.This post from Politifact and this post from Snopes highlight this kind of scam.

An example of this kind of advertisement:

Be very careful out there. A lot of highly disreputable people want your money, and don’t care how they get it.

The Old Wolf has spoken.