As Facebook shifts further into eCommerce, that will also see it dealing with more issues relating to misleading ads, payment disputes and scammers.
Getting ahead of the latter, and as we head into the holiday shopping season, Facebook has announced a new partnership with the Better Business Bureau which will seek to provide online shoppers with more information about potential scams and what they can do to protect themselves and avoid potential issues.
As explained by Facebook:
“We’ve partnered with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) on the “Shop Safe, Shop Smart” campaign. Starting today and throughout December, the “Shop Safe, Shop Smart” campaign from the BBB and Facebook will run ads and organic content on Facebook, Instagram and various social media channels to promote actionable tips on how to spot, avoid and report scams online.”
The campaign will help to keep Facebook users up to date on the latest scam tactics, bringing more awareness to such concerns. That will also enable BBB to generate a lot more coverage for its alerts and scam mitigation efforts.
As part of this campaign, every week, BBB will feature tips on how consumers can avoid scams on the new campaign website.
In addition to this, Facebook has also signed on to become a founding member of the BBB Corporate Trust Council, “a coalition of select companies sharing expertise to identify and solve key issues affecting consumers and businesses”.
“The goal is to build more trusting relationships between companies and their customers in the long run. We are also encouraging advertisers to follow our rules and use more ethical marketing tactics through a new partnership with BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division (NAD), including their Fast-Track SWIFT Program.”
The NAD partnership will enable Facebook to work with NAD on improving its dispute resolution and enforcement processes for Facebook ads which violate its rules.
As noted, with Facebook moving further into eCommerce, such issues are going to become more significant concerns, and it’s good to see Facebook taking early steps to partner with relevant groups in order to bring awareness to such scams.
At 2.7 billion active users, and with an older, and generally less tech-savvy user base, Facebook is a key target for scam activity, and while this won’t stamp out all of those efforts, it’s good to see Facebook looking to take more direct action to tackle such behavior.
