ACM campaign should make people more careful when making purchases on social media

Supervisor ACM has started a campaign to advise people to be careful when purchasing via advertisements on social media such as Facebook and Instagram. According to ACM, some of those providers are difficult to reach after a purchase and they provide little information about the product and their company.

ACM will, among other things, use YouTubers to publicize the warning to be careful with purchases from advertisements on social media. The regulator says that such advertisements are often specifically aimed at users and, moreover, are difficult or impossible to find after the purchase. As a result, according to ACM, people have often spent tens to hundreds of euros on impulse purchases without being able to contact the company in question.

The regulator does not provide figures on the number of purchases through social media advertisements, but notes that more and more people seem to do so. There are also no figures on how often the regulator has had complaints from consumers about this phenomenon.

ACM advises people to check before purchasing how reliable the company behind the advertisement is. Consuwijzer has made an ‘online shop check’ for this. That site advises people to google the company name with words like ‘complaint’ and ‘review’. Consuwijzer also says that people should check the Chamber of Commerce number and be suspicious if paying in advance is the only option. In addition, people should check the physical address and try if a mentioned phone number works.