Counterfeit "designer" goods Facebook/Instagram ads

Hijacks real brands' identity

Fraudsters copy legitimate retailers' copyrighted product photos and spin up professional-looking lookalike storefronts impersonating real brands such as Ray-Ban, Yeti, Hydro Flask, and Fossil, per BBB's counterfeit-goods study.

Card payments routed to Chinese banks

Researchers cited by BBB (IACC and NYU) found counterfeit purchases are almost always paid by credit card, with about 90% of payments processed through Chinese banks such as the Bank of China or Bank of Communications, exposing shoppers' card data.

Drop-shipped from China, returns impractical

BBB and the FTC report that orders which arrive at all are drop-shipped directly from China, and high return-shipping costs make refunds effectively unworkable.

~24% of luxury ads link to fakes; cloaked review

BBB cites research finding roughly 24% of Facebook fashion and luxury-goods ads link to sites selling counterfeits, and reporting on Meta shows scammers use "cloaking" to show reviewers a clean page while sending real users to counterfeit storefronts.

Thousands of complaints; most get nothing or fakes

BBB logged 2,003 counterfeit-product complaints plus 513 Scam Tracker reports over three years, and the FTC found most social-media shopping-scam victims either paid for items that never arrived or received counterfeits.

No legitimate contact info; telltale red flags

BBB notes these storefronts lack valid contact information, and warns that prices far below market, spelling and grammar errors, and poor-quality images are signs the ad is for a counterfeit.