Fraudsters are exploiting the emotional pull of a business closing down to trick shoppers on Facebook and Instagram, according to cybersecurity researchers. Adverts claiming that longstanding shops are shutting up shop and clearing stock at huge discounts are often nothing more than scams, leaving buyers out of pocket or with goods that barely resemble what was advertised.
Marta Mallavibarrena, a cybersecurity researcher based in Madrid, noticed four different Instagram accounts using the same phrase “Sadly, we are closing …” to promote sales. A search of Meta's ad library revealed 50,000 adverts using that exact wording, with 1,600 still active at the time. Most of the accounts behind them had been created recently, while older ones had typically changed their profile names in the preceding weeks.
In many cases, the goods are never sent at all, with the site disappearing after collecting payments. Where items do arrive, they are often counterfeit or of poor quality, traced to low-cost bulk suppliers. Mallavibarrena said buyers might receive “a polyester T-shirt with the knitting pattern printed on it, instead of an actual knitted sweater”. The accounts are frequently abandoned or renamed once negative reviews accumulate.
Serpil Hall, a consultant on fraud and economic crime, said such scams are “industrialised social engineering”, leveraging cheap ads and fake urgency to take money from thousands of consumers. The adverts often use the scarcity principle, claiming limited stock and offering bigger discounts for buying multiple items. Fake accounts may look polished, with addresses and city names such as London, and even feature AI-generated images of founders, but have no grounding in reality.
Shoppers are advised to pause before acting on such offers. Checking the comments on the profile page can reveal whether previous buyers received their orders and what the quality was like. A reverse image search on Google Images can show whether the pictures are used elsewhere, and complaints can be made to Meta about misleading content.
