A guide on how to report fake ads on Facebook

Last updated on: June 20, 2023

Facebook has approximately 2.98 billion users and in the first quarter of 2023 alone Meta detected and acted against 426 million fake accounts. For businesses, this level of fraud can be frightening because it poses a threat to intellectual property, brand reputation, and customer relationships. 

Reporting fake ads is one way your business can counter this rise in fraudulent content on Facebook. To remove fake ads you have to learn how to spot them, how to report them, and how to automate this whole process to ensure you protect your business quickly and at scale. 

In this blog, we provide a guide on how to report fake ads on Facebook by delving into a few key topics, including: 

• How to spot fake ads on Facebook
• How to report fake ads on Facebook
• Best practices for protecting your brand against fake ads on Facebook
• Leveraging automation to shield your brand from fake ads on Facebook

How to spot fake ads on Facebook

The first step to reporting fake ads is learning how to spot them. Fake ads come in all shapes and sizes but there are few common characteristics to look out for. 

Fake ads will often feature blatantly misleading claims. If an ad claims to solve all your problems and deliver you a perfect level of service with no drawbacks then it is highly likely to be a fake ad.  These kinds of scams are flooded with misleading claims because the scammers that create them know that that is how you get people to click. 

Similarly, fake ads will usually be quite low in quality – this applies to the images they use as well as the level of spelling and grammar. Fraudsters won’t spend too long crafting each individual fake ad. They traffic in quantity and speed which means that their fake ads are full of errors. 

To identify fake ads that are specifically targeting your brand you can use a few methods. Firstly, you can use the search function within Facebook itself to look for pages and accounts that are using your business’s name or any variation. Scammers often use this tactic because it is an easy way to trick people who search for your brand but may have incorrectly spelled your business’s name. Within these pages and accounts, you may find links to fake ads or the fake ads themselves.  

How to report fake ads on Facebook

Step 1: Identify the ad and select “Report ad”

Find the ad you want to report and click on the  next to the ad. Then select “Report ad” from the drop-down box that appears. 

Step 2: Choose your reason for reporting

You will then be shown a list of potential reasons for reporting. For fake ads, it usually makes sense to select the “Misleading or scam” option. 

Step 3: Send a detailed report 

After you select the reason, Facebook will thank you and give you the option of sending a more detailed report. If you want to, you can select this option which will redirect you to a new page where you can submit the evidence you have gathered and explain the reasoning behind your report. 

Best practices for protecting your brand against fake ads on Facebook

• Register your intellectual property (IP)

The first step you take to protect your brand from fake ads online is to register your intellectual property. For content,   this means registering your IP at the U.S. Copyright Office. For trademarks head over to the website of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. If you don’t register your intellectual property it will make it difficult to enforce against scammers who are misusing your content in their fake ads. 

• Manually monitor Facebook

While this method is ultimately time-consuming and inefficient, you should try to conduct some manual monitoring for fake ads on Facebook. This will let you take note of the type of fake ads that appear, as well as the frequency with which they appear. 

You will be able to see fake ads that target your brand alongside more general fraudulent apps. The more you monitor Facebook the easier it will be to distinguish the fake ads from the real ones. Hopefully, this will also make it easier to start taking swift and effective action against them. 

• Report fake ads on Facebook

Proactive monitoring should be followed up by robust enforcement. The first step of enforcement is to report all the fake ads you find on Facebook that have the potential to damage your business. You easily and quickly report fake ads on Facebook via the steps we have outlined. 

Once you’ve made your report you should then continue to track the incident and follow up with Facebook on the steps they have taken to address the issue. 

• Partner with a reliable Ad Protection Provider

Rather than taking the whole burden of reporting fake ads on your own shoulders, you should partner with a reliable Ad Protection. They will be able to take the pressure off through their experience and expertise. 

All the leading Ad Protection providers will have specialist software and systems to help you uncover and enforce against fake advertisers. Crucially, they’ll be able to do this at a speed and scale very difficult for your business to achieve on its own. 

Leveraging automation to shield your brand from fake ads on Facebook

The most effective way to report fake ads on Facebook is to make use of a modern, automated solution that takes down digital scammers and fraudulent ads. Red Points’ Ad Protection Solution is a leading service used by many businesses to protect against the prevalence of fake ads. 

Our Ad Protection solutions work via three simple and effective steps: 

Find

Our automated bot-powered search quickly identifies potentially infringing ads within marketplaces and on search engines. The wide scope of the search ensures that you can uncover scammers and swiftly take action against them. 

Remove

We then begin the process of reporting and removing fraudulent and infringing ads. Our built-in workflows instantly kick into gear and can be tailored to adopt an approach that suits your brand’s protection goals. 

Measure

After action against the creators of fake ads has concluded you immediately measure the success of the steps you have taken. Within our platform, we provide a variety of up-to-date and in-depth reports to help you understand the extent of your anti-fraud coverage. 

We ensure that you keep your customers safe, protect your brand reputation, and safeguard your revenue from scammers. With our search for fraudsters spreading to over 240 countries and territories, we are committed to providing comprehensive protection against fake ads. 

What’s next

Fake ads on Facebook are more than a nuisance. Many businesses around the world, they have the potential to ruin their reputation and minimize revenue. As a brand owner or executive, you have to act now if you want to protect your brand and your customers. The first, and simplest, way to get rid of these fake ads is to report them. Following that, proactive monitoring and enforcement are vital for your continued protection. 
Here at Red Points, we are always focused on protecting brands and empowering them to grow their presence online. Red Points’ Ad Protection Solution is tailored to safeguard businesses from fake ads and their potentially damaging impact. Through automation, smart workflows, and extensive resources we allow you to take decisive action. To learn more about how Red Points can help you, request a demo here.