USocial, a company which sells Facebook friends and fans, has received a cease and desist from Facebook for violating the company’s terms of service. The BBC claims that the issue at hand is that the company is “letting people profit from their profile”, which is strictly forbidden within Facebook’s terms. We’ve reached out to Facebook for clarification on the issue, to see if there were any issues with the company selling fans. In early October we highlighted the growth in the pay per fan business model, and since then we’ve heard an increasing amount of buzz about the space.
More specific to the Cease and Desist sent to USocial were claims that the marketing firm “violates its rights by sending spam, using web tools to harvest pages, getting login names and by accessing accounts that did not belong to the marketing firm.” In other words, USocial’s activity is not kosher. The real question though is whether or not Facebook allows the selling of fans and/or friends as long as user accounts aren’t being harvested or accessed through unauthorized means.
While Facebook has explicitly stated that users cannot profit from their own profiles, it hasn’t been stated if third parties can sell friends or fans without providing monetary incentives to users. There is a rapidly increasing number of companies who sell fans to brands for Facebook Pages and it’s a topic which Facebook has yet to publicly comment on. Instead, “pay per fan” businesses continue to operate under the radar without explicit approval from Facebook.
Based on the BBC article, we’d assume that USocial simply crossed the line and paid users for adding friends and/or accessed user accounts through unauthorized means to generate new connections. We’ve reached out to Facebook for a comment on the issue and will be sure to update this post if we hear back.
Update
While Facebook didn’t clarify what exactly took place with USocial, they did provide the following statement: “We’ll continue to protect our users and the integrity of our site by enforcing our policies. We’re pleased that uSocial has agreed to comply.”
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They have just disappear I have payed and it is a fake, they never did anithing to work and get fans, it is amazing how they stole from people and how they get post from all kink of sites.
Comment by Anna — January 13, 2010 @ 11:41 am
Well really Usocial is real scam!!! one should never go for such websites that "sell" followers or fans. Its better to instead help to promote the natural and organic growth of your website by help of reputed social media marketers like SOCIONIKS .. i had got my money scammed from usocial, and after reading so much about socioniks, i contacted them to design the fbml facebook fanpage and promote it. And now, it has really helped my business grow.
Comment by Ryan Stew — July 17, 2010 @ 3:26 am
I would like to provide everyone with the emails I was shown to test this service. All of us running companies are aware that the more followers we gain, the more the stigma is that your business is successful and worth following or buying from. So why wouldn't it entice every business just trying to keep up with what society had demanded we do which is -be popular online.
I tested Usocial out and bought the 1,000 likes for facebook page. This was the cheapest plan they had so I started with this. The promise of a money back guarantee is what made me put my usually very high guard down and buy into the gimmick. As always in life, the old saying, if it seems to be to good to be true, it probably is" was something ringing in my head about one week info the purchase due to emails that were excuses on giving them time to keep the money and not deliver results.
Below are the emails they sent. No results were given.
I would like to recommend a few things to get them back for this:
1. Call your bank and dispute the claim.
2. Write an online complaint to the bbb . org against Usocial by looking up the company that took the money out of our account which for me was
BANK INFO : PLI*USOCIAL Plimus,Inc 11/16PLI*USOCIAL
3. find other outlets such as this one who have written popular reviews that is high up in the search results for blasting their service and calling them out and leave comments verifying it to be true by sharing your story.
4. write your own blog, or if you feel the need, share with your following what happened. you would be surprised how many fans and followers will respect the honesty of why you tried to buy followers and understand that your just trying to grow your business.
USOCIAL EMAILS TO ME TILL THEY STOPPED WRITING BACK:
Hi Melissa,
Thank you for your order and we look forward to fulfilling it for you.
We have received your order confirmation and now we only require your Facebook fan page URL. If you could email this to me as soon as is convenient for you, that would be great. We recommend that you pause any other promotions you have running, as this can interfere with the numbers we used to calculate your order.
Regards,
Misty L.
Customer Support — uSocial . net
misty@usocial . net
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*** Want to partner with uSocial to resell our fantastic Twitter, Facebook and YouTube marketing services to your own customers? Head to http://usocial.net/partners now for more information. ***
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Hello Melissa,
Your order should be starting any time now.
Regards,
Misty L.
Customer Support — uSocial . net
misty @ usocial . net
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Here is my Complain submission to Better Business Bureau at bbb . org
Complaint Description:
This company is linked to the business who removed 124.10 from my account for the purchase through Usocial . net internet marketing services. Not only did they not live up to their guarantee stated on website, but the emails were false, stating results would be seen 5 days after purchase. no results were ever delivered. no email responses to solve the issue were responded. upon research online, other customers claimed same issues. Stating they had never been delivered the services purchased, no proper correspondence from company, and no refunds. With the claim of a money back guarantee and not living up to this or providing services and stating false emails that results would be seen soon, verifies a scam. I have contacted my bank and deputed the claim.
Your Desired Resolution:
I would like to warn others of this Scam. From my business with this company and reading several reviews of the service not completed and no money back as they claim to offer. This needs to be addressed.
This case will be reviewed by a complaint specialist at the Better Business Bureau, and then forwarded to the business for their response. It is our policy to allow the business 10 working days to respond to your complaint. You will be notified when the business has responded.
*******Feel free to use parts of this for your own submission.
Comment by melissa — December 3, 2011 @ 2:17 pm