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What’s With This “Rent Out Your Facebook Account” Craigslist Ad?

I was going through my Google Alerts and found a very odd Craigslist ad:

Odd Craigslist Ad

The ad was from http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/dmg/5508562124.html (still active after approximately 16 hours, at this writing) and starts out:

Are you an Active FB user? Do you also have a home computer/internet connection? If so, then you most likely qualify to make $100.00 from my company for less than 20 minutes of your time.

There’s an URL in it connected to the domain rentfb.com . According to Whois.SC, it was registered in mid-February, and a search for “rentfb.com” on Google doesn’t return much aside from domain information sites…

Except Craigslist. Run a search for rentfb.com site:craigslist.org and you’ll see a whole lot of advertising going on:

RentFB Ads on Craigslist

(… and no, Google, I did not mean RENT)

Since the ad asks for zip code I suspect this is advertising-targeting or otherwise geography-based, but I don’t know enough about playing Facebook to have an idea.

Anybody seen this? Any thoughts?

UPDATE: I posted this story at 13:33 and Google had it indexed for the search term rentfb.com within five minutes. Yow.

Google indexing RentFb.com

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24 replies »

  1. I think it is a scam. I answered a Craigslist rent your ad space on Facebook. They never went into my account it was painless. BUT I never got the promised $175. (now $150) I have sent emails etc… and nothing. So don’t waste your time, it is a scam.

  2. I am currently “investigating” the situation. I signed up with FBbucks to see if it is legit or a scam. The sites you work through appear to be legitimate. However, once I had my business site up to their code and running, I have not heard back from them. Nor have I received the promised 24 hour payment. Communication stopped once they told me I did a good job setting up the Business side to their specifications. I have decided to give them until Tuesday before I shut down my business page and start reporting them as scam. I’m doing this because communication stopped around the end of work business hours on Friday. I have not heard from them in response to my queries for payment since. Monday is Labor day. So I figure I will wait until end of business Tuesday before I start destroying their name. So far, that business page has generated nearly 350 likes, all from what appears to be the Middle East. I don’t know what they are ding but I’m having an interesting time trying to figure it out.
    My FB account has very limited information of me, and I have Webroot running to detect any malware/virus that may pop up. So far, 3 days in, my computer is clean.
    There is the chance this could be legit. However, I am leaning far more towards Scam.

    Here is the page I created for them: https://www.facebook.com/HealthNutLovePage/?notif_t=page_fan&notif_id=1472882868935586

  3. For anyone seeing this. I work for a company who does this. There are A LOT of malicious companies out there who do one of two things and sometimes both.

    1. Dangle the carrot – They will say you can make somewhere in the $500 range to rent out your ads account. They will pay you $100 a month for renting out your ads account. Thing is the ads rarely last over a month and if the ad they put up last 5 months they’ve made thousands off your account. If you see an ad that has a monthly pay system that is a red flag right off the bat.

    2. Not pay you at all – Some of these companies simply never pay people.

    You can see how a combination of the two would result in an extra salty situation. Now let’s talk about the risk involved. If you plan or even think maybe you might possibly in the future promote a website, a facebook page for a company, band, pretty much pay to promote anything on Facebook in the future this is not for you.

    The promotions largely end if Facebook deems the advertisements violate their terms of use or a policy of some kind. I work in an office and down the hall there is a company who put up an ad for a penis enlargement formula. Some how some way that ad got through for about a week and then got the account banned.

    If you’re in need of some quick cash and don’t plan to advertise on facebook through their advertising platform this is a viable option but you have to be very, very, very, careful about which company you go with. The higher the cash amount they offer the higher your eyebrow should be raised.

    • Jason TayloTaylor I guess that puts your company cashwithfb in “that catagory” then as scam…since you left my account with the unpaid balance on your ad. Plus for NOT paying me. Ripoff here everybody. Sorry business.

  4. I just started out with FbBucks and i recieve 2 payment my first month so from my experience so far they are legit.

    • Really? That’s the same place that asked me. But not using your own picture you can get sued for so i just don’t understand they never told me how i was getting paid just that i would and wanted me to use other peoples pictures from Google and i saw on Google there were a bunch of law suits on Facebook for copyright reasons because of using other peoples pictures

  5. I’m researching cause of craigslist as well. It’s a person and they want me to create a blog then send the link. Supposedly pays 100 right away then 500 a month so i think i learned enough to turn it down thank you for the info.

  6. Also they didn’t want me to use my picture wanted me to Google someome else that threw up a red flag for me cause i have plenty of clean cut business pictures of myself. I guess sounding too good to be true is true.

  7. Hi, I’m currently doing a test on a company with the same concept called Coast-Marketing. They said that I could total out at $100. I’m on my 3rd payment of $25. Showing proof of payments on my WordPress. I’m supposed to be getting the last payment this Tuesday and will post final results. They only let you do it once; so it’s only a one-time deal one $100 and you’re done. So far so good but I’ll post more current results here.

    Also, has anyone ever seen that section in the FB Terms Of contents where this is seeming sketchy.

  8. I Started with rentyouraccount.org and so far they’re legit. been with them for a month and a half .

  9. So. I did it. I had three pho e calls to set up the add. I watched them enter their information amd they said friday which is today. I got paid 75 dollars it seems really legit. I gave them my secondary account so they dont even have access to anything nor do they seem to mind. They only asked if it was my account.

  10. Yeah I just saw the one in Seattle and was trying to figure out if it was true or not I don’t think I’m going to attempt it this thing sounds sketchy are there any places that are legit that actually do this

  11. craigslist is a waste of time. most of those who post and most of those who reply are either scammers or time wasters.

  12. They are asking for my access codes to be sent to the lead. But they said my password was safe with the form I filled out. Idk but my FB is not that important and my credit sucks anyways so I’m gonna go for it. I’ll let you know what I find out. ☺️

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