Facebook Sues 4 Vietnamese for Hacking Accounts and $36 Million Ad Fraud

Facebook on Tuesday revealed it filed two separate legal actions
against perpetrators who abused its ad platform to run deceptive
advertisements in violation of the company’s Terms^[1] and Advertising
Policies^[2].

“In the first case, the defendants are a California marketing
company and its agents responsible for a bait-and-switch^[3]
advertising scheme on Facebook,” the social media giant’s Director
of Platform Enforcement and Litigation, Jessica Romero, said^[4].

“In the second case, the defendants are a group of individuals
located in Vietnam who got users to self-compromise their Facebook
accounts and ran millions of dollars of unauthorized ads.”

As part of the fraudulent activity, the marketing company,
N&J USA Incorporated, promoted the sale of merchandise such as
clothing, watches, and toys through misleading ads that, when
clicked, redirected users to other e-commerce websites to complete
the purchase, only to either receive nothing or get delivered items
that were “different or of a lesser quality than what had been
advertised.”

The company, along with Mohit Melwani and Vishaal Melwani, also
actively blocked complaints and negative reviews shared by users
who fell for the scheme, Facebook said, adding it took steps to
disable the defendants’ accounts and Pages.

Separately, four Vietnamese nationals — Thêm Hữu Nguyễn, Lê
Khang, Nguyễn Quốc Bảo, and Pham Hữu Dung — have been accused of
exploiting a technique called cookie theft to take over accounts of
employees of advertising and marketing agencies, using them to run
unauthorized ads worth $36 million.

To achieve this, the individuals developed a malicious Android
app called “Ad Manager for Facebook” that prompted the victims into
sharing their Facebook login credentials, thereby enabling the
defendants to access their accounts and run ads, including some
that promoted online scams.

The app has since been removed from the Google Play Store, with
Facebook also refunding the impacted victims. “Creating real world
consequences for those who deceive users and engage in cloaking
schemes is important in maintaining the integrity of our platform,”
said Romero.