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Scam ads impersonating brands → what’s your playbook for getting them removed fast?
Posted by on February 17, 2026 at 12:50 amHey folks – I’m seeing more cases where scammers run brand-impersonation ads (Meta/Google/TikTok) that send traffic to a cloned storefront / lookalike domain.
I’m trying to learn from practitioners here (and building an internal workflow tool with a few brands) on what actually works fastest.
Questions:
- When you spot an impersonation/scam ad, what’s your quickest takedown path? (policy reporting vs trademark vs other)
- What evidence seems to move the needle? (screenshots, redirect chain, domain age/WHOIS, comparisons, etc.)
- Do you see patterns that correlate with “high risk” scam landers (e.g., huge discount promos, cloned reviews, checkout mirrors)?
If you’ve dealt with this recently, I’d really appreciate what you’ve learned (even if it’s “nothing works consistently”).
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1 Reply
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fastest path in my experience is parallel reports, platform policy plus trademark if you have it, and a hosting or registrar abuse notice at the same time, don’t wait to see which one sticks. screenshots of the ad, the full redirect chain, and side by side comparison with the real domain usually move quicker than whois data alone. the high risk pattern is always urgency plus unrealistic discounts and a checkout that mirrors the real brand, so we flag those immediately and track repeat domains tied to the same infra.
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trademark complaints are the only thing that consistently moves the needle, everything else gets buried in the support queue. screenshot the ad + landing page side-by-side, include your registration number, and file directly through their [ip.facebook.com](http://ip.facebook.com) portal instead of the regular report button. regular reports go to the same void as their customer service.
the scam landers are always a checklist: stolen product photography, 70-80% discounts, fake countdown timers, and reviews that are suspiciously perfect. if you see all four together it’s 100% a dropshipper with stolen designs.
honestly your best move is just running brand-safety keywords in google ads yourself to see what’s running, then batching complaints. platforms don’t care about individual reports but they’ll move if you’re hitting them with 20 verified cases of the same domain impersonating the same trademark.
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