I fell for one of these ads on Instagram years ago. The ad was for a bike light with an innovative design. The website had a clean look and feel. They accepted

I fell for one of these ads on Instagram years ago. The ad was for a bike light with an innovative design. The website had a clean look and feel. They accepted paypal (again years ago). I’m usually very sceptical about scam but back then I naively assumed that you can’t just create an obvious scam ad like this without Facebook and Google catching you. Since you have to have a payment method in file I thought that’ll be a deterrent as well. I was totally fooled. The scammers even shipped me a super basic bike light to show proof that they actually shipped an item. I had to first file a claim with PayPal and they refunded me but only after some haggling. I reported the ad to Instagram with all the proof and pictures. I used their security/phishing contact to report this. The ad and the associated account was still there when I checked months later. I mean I can understand these companies not wanting to care about us measly users enough to respond to account related queries. But this is their bread and butter. If I don’t trust your ads anymore why on earth would I ever click or buy anything. If anything it makes all good businesses lose as well. That’s their real customers. I see people here defending YouTube that it’s understandable that YouTube doesn’t have the time to screen ads. I call bullshit. This is their core product. Ads. They have to care for their own and their customers’ (advertisers) sake.