The cheapest scam in e-commerce right now is someone else's ad with your shop's name on it. A copied logo, your product photos, a "70% off, last day" headline and a link to a checkout that is not yours. With AI image and video tools, making one takes minutes. Mark Cuban said in August that he gets emails "every single week" from older people asking whether a diabetes cure sold with an AI version of his face will work. You are not Mark Cuban, but the same tools copy a small brand just as easily, and the holiday season is when it pays most.
Meta has a tool built for this, Brand Rights Protection, and since August 2025 it covers scam ads that use your name even when they do not copy your trademark. It is not new, and it is not open to everyone. Here is what it does, how to tell if you can use it, what to do if you cannot, and the one thing every shop should do before Black Friday either way.
What Brand Rights Protection does
Brand Rights Protection is a dashboard inside Meta's Business Manager. Once enrolled, you can:
- Search Facebook and Instagram ads and posts, Facebook Shops, Marketplace, buy-and-sell groups, Pages, profiles and Instagram accounts for content that misuses your brand or impersonates you;
- Add reference images, such as your logo and key product photos, which help Meta detect possible matches automatically;
- Send removal requests and track their status in one place.
The August 2025 change matters most for scam ads. Before it, you mostly had to show a trademark, copyright or counterfeit problem. Now enrolled businesses can also report "suspected scams and misleading ads that exploit a brand's name without authorization", using the Other violation type on the ads tab. Meta also reorganised the drafts tab by violation type and added search by report ID, keyword, trademark and report owner, which helps when you file a batch.
For scale: Meta says it removed more than 157 million pieces of ad content across Facebook and Instagram in 2024 for breaking its rules on fraud, scams and deceptive practices.
Can you enrol?
To apply you need:
- a Meta Business Manager account for your business;
- a registered trademark that is active and text-based or image-based;
- no history of intellectual-property violations;
- to be an employee of the brand applying.
The trademark is the line most small shops fall on. A pending application or a business name registered with your local company register is not the same as a registered trademark. If you have one, apply from the Brand Rights Protection option in Business Manager's menu.
If you can enrol: a 30-minute setup
- Add your trademark details and keep a list of the Pages and Instagram accounts that are really yours, so whoever checks results can tell real from fake at a glance.
- Upload reference images: your logo, and the three to five product photos you use most in ads. These are what copycats lift.
- Save searches for your shop name, common misspellings, and your best-selling product names next to the brand.
- File one test report on something clearly fake, so you know the flow before you need it at speed in late November.
- Decide who checks it, and how often. Once a week is fine most of the year; daily from mid-November to Christmas.
If you cannot enrol: the manual route
Without Brand Rights Protection you can still report fakes. It is slower and one item at a time, so collect evidence first.
- Find them. Search Meta's public Ad Library for your shop name and your top product names. It shows active ads from any advertiser, no login tricks needed. Ask customers to forward anything suspicious too.
- Screenshot everything: the ad, the advertiser's Page name and URL, the landing page address and any checkout page. Scam Pages disappear and reappear under new names.
- Report the ad from the ad itself (the three-dot menu, then report as a scam).
- Report the Page or account as impersonating a business. Meta's help centre has an impostor form where you choose "Someone created an account for my business or organization", and on a Page you can report it as pretending to be another business. You will usually be asked for your real Page name or URL.
- Track the reports in your Support Inbox under reports about others.
If fakes keep coming back, that is a strong argument for registering a trademark. It is the entry ticket not only to Meta's tool but to most marketplace brand-protection programmes.
Before Black Friday, whatever your status: tell customers where the real shop is
Takedowns lag behind fakes. The protection that works on day one is customers who know what you look like. Put this in three places: a short page on your site, a pinned post on Instagram and Facebook, and a line in order-confirmation emails.
Where to find us. We sell only at yourshop.example and through our Instagram @yourshop and Facebook page Your Shop. We never ask for payment by DM, bank transfer or a link outside our checkout. Our sale prices are on our site; if an ad promises much more, it is probably not us. Saw something suspicious? Forward it to [email protected] and we will check.
That last line also turns your customers into your monitoring. Many shops first hear about a fake from a customer who was nearly caught by it.
The honest limits
- Brand Rights Protection speeds up finding and reporting fakes. It does not stop them being made, and removals are not instant.
- It covers Meta's platforms only. A scam that moves to TikTok or a search ad needs those platforms' own reports.
- Without a registered trademark you are on the manual route. It works, but plan for it to take time each week during the holiday rush.
Thirty minutes now, and ten a week through December, is cheap compared with refund requests and one-star reviews from people who never bought from you.
Sources
- Mediaweek: Meta expands Brand Rights Protection to target scam ads (August 2025)
- Search Engine Journal: Meta lets brands search Facebook and Instagram for stolen content (features and eligibility)
- IBTimes UK: Mark Cuban criticises Meta over deceptive AI ads (August 2026)
- Social Media Examiner: How to report fake accounts, including business impersonation on Facebook
