I’m Furious At The Dishonesty
Let me start by saying that this isn’t at all what I had planned to blog about today. But y’all, I’m in a mood. I’m furious. I’m just so incredibly frustrated.
Yesterday, I shared with y’all about how I recognized a shipping container scam on Facebook Marketplace. I saw red flags right away, so I didn’t actually come close to letting them separate me from my money, but I’m sure others have! And the thought of that makes me angry.
We’ve all come across scams online. If we haven’t been scammed ourselves, we undoubtedly know someone who has. My mom recently bought some huge, full, gorgeous faux ferns from a Facebook ad, or so she thought. What she actually received was a tiny fake fern with about 5-7 leaves that were about 10 inches long. It was a far cry from the massive, full fern in the advertisement that probably spanned at least three feet.
It’s to the point that I won’t trust any ad anymore unless it’s from a business I’m familiar with. I get a lot of ads from Gap, Loft, Ann Taylor, Old Navy, Aerosoles, Anthropologie, and other well-known stores. I trust those. I purchase from those. I enjoy seeing their ads because I can keep up with their sales. But I’m to the point that I don’t trust any store I don’t already know. And that’s really sad. That’s a huge disadvantage to the legitimate small businesses that are trying to get their products and services out there to the masses. But the fact is that the scammers are ruining it for them.
How in the world does Meta not have more control over this? I mean, they’re one of the biggest data collection companies in the world. They collect so much data on us that they know us (and our buying habits) better than we know ourselves. So if they have us so dialed in, how do they not have these scam companies dialed in? I just don’t get it. And it seems to be getting worse and worse by the day.
So I was thoroughly frustrated this morning, having already dealt with that scam shipping container company two days ago, when I got a message from a reader who told me about a company using my photos. This isn’t new. Companies have been stealing my photos for over a decade to use for their advertisements. I’m pretty sure every blogger out there has had to deal with this.
My first exposure to this was back in 2010 when a Texas interior designer stole photos of a room I decorated for the Waco Symphony Showhouse years ago and used my pictures to advertise her business. I wrote about it here. And it has happened many times since then. I’ve had contractors, builders, and handymen steal my photos and use them to advertise their businesses. It astounds me how some of these people feel so free to steal pictures of someone else’s work and then claim it as their own work and use it to advertise their services.
So when this commenter said a company was using my pictures, that’s what I expected. (Had I read her comment more carefully, I would have realized this was very different.) But this had nothing to do with my house or a room I had designed or decorated. No, the photos this company was using were OF MY FACE. They had literally stolen before and after pictures OF MY FACE to use to advertise their (probably scam) skin tightening product.
This is the website. The company name is tiny, but it’s called Meterperion…
They’re advertising this eye tightener cream, although the woman in the Facebook ad video uses it all over her face…
And if you keep scrolling down through several before and after pics, you’ll come to…
…me! THAT’S ME!!! Those are pictures OF MY FACE that they stole from my blog. That first picture was from this post where I shared about using castor oil on my face.
I have never used this company’s product, and I had never even heard of it until today. But that didn’t stop them from stealing my pictures and making this fake before and after to push their scam product.
First of all, what a stupid comparison! In that first picture, I don’t have on any makeup at all. In the second picture, I have on makeup, my hair is done, and the lighting is vastly different. But they also retouched that second picture! I have been using castor oil on my face (although I think that picture was taken before I started, or right after I started), and while castor oil has helped my skin tremendously, and I can see a huge difference in the fine lines and wrinkles on my face, it most certainly didn’t turn my face into porcelain, which is what it looks like in their ridiculous retouched photo above.
This is the photo they stole. I still have wrinkles. I haven’t seen that person above in their “after” photo in about 25 years.
I mean, I am so unbelievably angry at the sheer level of dishonesty and scams. Maybe we’d all be better off returning to a “buy local” mentality. You never know what you’re going to get online, but it seems to me like at least 50% of the advertisements out there are complete scams.
And FYI, I’m no longer using plain castor oil. I do love castor oil, but my bonus sister Cathi sent me some tallow and castor oil cream that she makes and asked me to try it out. That stuff is AMAZING!!! I had tried tallow before (the Kushi brand), and while I did like it a lot, it was never one of those products that I thought, “Oh my gosh! This is amazing!!” In fact, I had cancelled my subscription because I preferred my plain castor oil.
But when I started using Cathi’s tallow and castor oil balm, my skin LOVED it! It makes my skin feel so silky smooth and moisturized. So that’s what I use at night now. I still get the benefits of the castor oil with the added moisturizing benefits of tallow. Her stuff is so good that I’ve told her I can never be without it now. She’s just a one-person operation, but you can get some here. She makes small batches at a time, so if she’s sold out, you can check back later.
Anyway, the moral of the story here is that, in my humble opinion, the internet is now filled mostly with scammers trying to separate you from your money. Stick with tried and true businesses, or businesses suggested to you by people you know and trust. Because once you get outside of those businesses, it’s like the Wild West out there.
Also, feel free to go flood the comment section of this company’s advertisements with your honest opinion of them stealing pictures from me to advertise their scam product. I left two comments, but they deleted them. And if they stole my pictures, I would imagine that the rest of the “before and after” pictures on that product listing are stolen as well. And I’m sure the so-called “reviews” are fake also.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
There is a crafter I follow on Facebook. She has a store and designs rice papers for decoupage. She just found her designs pirated and put on sweatshirts and tee shirts being sold on Amazon and other places. I’m not sure what kind of recourse she has. It is just terrible that crooks do this to decent people. Stealing your face really feels like a personal violation.
This absolutely does feel like a personal violation. It feels very different from people stealing pictures of my house and projects.
You have a right to be angry! I would be too. So much dishonesty out there. The old saying if its too good to be true…😕 as far as face creams etc, there is nothing that can be applied topically that can “tighten” skin! Maybe a temporary plumping but nothing that is going to reverse the years of aging! People need to stop falling for these scams!
I think you’ve got it right! Buy local! May be a few more dollars but why are we giving amazon all of our money. Instant gratification gets us all and that click on a button is just so easy.
Do you happen to know the size of the tallow/castor oil she’s selling? I looked at the website but I can’t seem to find it. Thanks!
Found it! Sorry!
Oh good! For reference, the Kushi I was buying was $42 for a 2-ounce jar.
I use it, too, and LOVE it. And a little goes a long way!
Because of the same things you describe in your post, I have started looking for “Made in USA” and if I don’t see that, you can bet it is an ad for a foreign product and most likely will not meet your expectations. I don’t need the frustration, so I just stay clear. I was almost scammed once in searching for a motor home, found one that looked perfect (you know the old saying about if it looks to good to be true, it probably is), and wanted to look at it. The seller replied that he went thru EBay buyer’s program and I would pay EBay and have 90 days to check it out and use it and if I did not want it I could get a full refund through Ebay Buyer program. I wanted to click the “buy now” button but my husband said not to and he called EBay and they said they have no such program and it is a scam, and they have a fake logo to “buy now”. I would have lost over $10K. Thank goodness my husband called. You really need to check out everything now days.
Disgraceful. I have had suprisingly good results reporting to the State Attorney General’s office. Real businesses seem to be afraid of them.
Of course if it is a “business” out of someone’s garage, they will probably
just shut down and reopen under another name, but it would still be
satisfying.
Tx & FL have excellent AG offices! My claim to fame is getting KMart credit cards thrown out of the State of Fla in 1972! They would take your payment at the store but if the store didn’t get the actual payment to Detroit before your due date, you got charged interest. I sent a letter and all my monthly bills & receipts to the AG’s office. They looked into it. KMart called me a deadbeat. Anyway in early 1974, I got a new Visa card in the mail with the notice that it was to replace my KMart card. I called the AG’s office and talked to a very nice lady who told me that they had given KMart 90 days to change their policy or face penalties. KMart’s choice was to pull their cards.
My idea was that there were 8 million ppl in FL in 1971. If 1 mil had CC and were charged $1 of interest fraudulently, that was 12 million KMart was taking monthly out of FL! I think that’s was caught the AG’s interest. Now we know why KMart went down the tubes. Couldn’t make enough money to keep going!
Wow, when I read the title of today’s blog I was afraid you had lost your money on the shipping container. Well, I hope that scam company goes out of business soon and the crooks move on. And, leave your image alone.
So… Maybe just start a page on here like recommended products that a list of reported companies stealing the pictures. You don’t have to maintain it too much, to keep the links active just let it grow, recent ones on top. But if someone finds something we can send it along on a recent post and you add reply on that comment, “verified” added it *insert scam page link*, then move on. Sometimes searches can pick up on this and see the company name and scam so when savy buyers look they can easily verify it. You do have eyeballs so it might work ok. The scam list page can clarify it’s digital content found to be using your content without your permission.
On that note pictures have been stolen from FB and more places to advertise fraudulent products. There was a trick a while back, you searched on Google with a few specific key phrases and image search. Then AI would generate a t-shirt with that on it and an ad for custom t-shirts would be seen within 48 hrs of what you looked for.
And for kids growing up, it’s so so hard to grow-up in privacy. I love sharing photos and moments to distant relatives, but I can’t trust much that uses the internet to keep private content private. Most weight loss and skin care things I don’t trust the pictures. Because so much of media is stolen content.
Oh my goodness – I would be livid! I see so many scams on a daily basis. I admin two lost and found dog/pet pages. Every email I send out is filled with scam warnings. A popular one is to post a picture of an animal that is injured and go into detail about what happened. People share those like crazy, not realizing they’re scams. You can always tell when you go to the original poster’s page because “moderator has turned off commenting for this post”. I don’t understand how people can be so low that they don’t care that everyone in the world is thoroughly disgusted by them. I also love all of the eye-catching ads that come across social media, curated just for the viewer. If something really catches my eye, I’ll start searching for reviews somewhere other than on their page. It’s just ridiculous.
I do the same. I never buy direct from a facebook or instagram ad. I look online for other ways to find the product if I’m interested.
With the ad that Kristi’s photo is used on – I see it’s from somewhere in Asia. There is nothing good about Meterperion.Worldwide showing up in my research.
I learned that lesson about ordering something I saw on Facebook the hard way. Ordered two rocking outdoor chairs from a company that said it was in England. I allowed eight weeks to go by and then contacted them when they hadn’t arrived. Tracking was weird. It was during the early days of Covid and they said things were delayed. Waited another couple of weeks. I reached out again and they said it was shipped. When I would check the tracking, I could tell it was coming from China. Suddenly it said it had been delivered. I live in a small community of 450 people and ask the postmaster if they remember getting a big package for me, but I already knew the answer was no. I filed a complaint with PayPal, but they sided with the company because tracking said it had been delivered. I was so irritated that I contacted the Postal Service and found out that the tracking number was not even real. When I called PayPal again and told them all of this they put me on hold and then came back and said I was going to be refunded and I was. But I really think they just took the loss and did not penalize that company. After all of this, I remember remembered that I had received too tiny wood music boxes in the mail some weeks earlier. I think that is why it came from China because I did not order those. When I googled the reviews for that company, I read many complaints and people said they got these little music boxes. I learned my lesson and when I see something that looks too good to be true, I try not to fall for it. I just go to Amazon and look for it there. I’m sorry this happened to your mother. I know exactly what those big ferns look like . You also sometimes see those beautiful big wreaths for next to nothing so you know that’s a scam. Lesson learned!
When I went to the website, I couldn’t find your picture but did note that this is a Chinese company. The don’t follow any copyright or trademark rules. But I did leave an angry face emoji on the Facebook ad!
About the fern that another lady had a problem with. I had something similar happen with the thingies you put between your front seat and the console to stash small things in. Instead of getting the nice leather ones with a wire cup holder attached, I got 2 pcs of plastic sewn together on 3 sides. My order had been for 3 sets of the things in the ad and came to $134. To return, I would have to send them back to China instead of NJ where they were shipped from. I did get all but $20 back from my CC people. PayPal kept the $20. I did learn a valuable lesson. 1. don’t shop at any company that had a weird unpronounceable name and 2. ALWAYS check Amazon for the same product. I found the identical product for $16 a set. $48 total, not $134. Oh, #3 is to not use Paypal if you can use a credit card number. Mine was with Chase. They have never failed to fix any disputes I’ve made over the last 15 years. I have had to change my CC # when it was obvious it was hacked. That inconvenience was better than losing money. Chase has a wonderful fraud detection system. They know where I shop better than I do! LOL They knew I wasn’t in San Diego buying $3K of goods from Home Depot. They also knew I wasn’t buying a $2K camera in Oregon or $4K of goods in Baltimore. Other than the car things, I have never lost a penny using a credit care. I also never use my debit card except at a local ATM at my bank.
It gets harder and harder to protect yourself these days. One other thing I’ve done is to freeze my accounts with Transunion, Experian and I forget the name of the third. Stops identity thieves in their tracks or anybody opening an account in my name.
Here is FL, we have a problem with scammers foraging deeds on homes that are paid off and then selling your home out from under you. Ck your county Tax collectors office every few months to make sure you still own your home if you don’t have a mortgage. Can you tell my daughter in Pearland TX is an attorney?
It may be the Peter Thomas Roth cosmetic brand who stole your photos and not Meterion. It is dishonest, nonetheless.
Kristi, sadly, ETSY has also turned into scam artists. They steal others’ pix, take your money, & send nothing. I will never buy from anyone on Etsy again. Happened to me twice, 2 different sellers.
Always check on line for the independent reviews and also to see their rating as a scam. Some scammers steal company logos, so even your favorite retailers can be manipulated on scam sites.
Boy that is just awful they did that. Well, I did order the Cathi, her castor oil butter. I been using castor oil but don’t like the stickiness of it. So, I’m excited to try this. Thanks for sharing even though it was through a bad circumstance.
I guess that’s why so many have a stamp of their blog name printed right across the photos in bright yellow ink!
I wonder what would be involved in getting a copyright on your photos and if it would be worth the trouble. Hopefully copyright infringement would carry some punitive measures that would compensate you for the theft, as well as the aggravation!
Im sorry youre going thru this horrible violation of privacy/piracy. But I did notice that the scammers have a PayPal button on that 1st picture under your before/after photos. I would definitely send the screen shot to PayPal and report it to them! Fraud Alert!
Tell them the full story….they may get in some sort of trouble? Or just booted off paypal but who knows?
I know how you feel Kristi! I have had photos stolen from my gardening blog and used for other’s businesses. One photo of some pathway lights along my front walk was stolen and used by a landscape light company in Australia! Such moral depravity! Thank you for specifically calling the company out.
My PayPal account was compromised and can’t use it!
Julie Morris
This makes me furious as well. I have been victimized a time or two. These companies are even mimicking name brand stores like Clark’s and Nordstrom. one claimed their boots were genuine high quality leather but was just cheap and easily damaged vinyl.
I just posted this on the site:
This company is a scammer, stealing unauthorized pictures from the internet and even using filters on them to falsely portray them as users of their phony product! I know of one victim personally. Don’t fall for this lie!!
If your mother is still interested in faux ferns I ordered from the Nearly Natural 40” Boston Fern set of two from the Nearly Natural Store on Amazon and they are amazing. You can get two for $39.00. I tried to add a picture but it wouldn’t let me.
I’ve told her about the Nearly Natural brand. She lives the little trees I have by my front door, and they’re that brand. I don’t know why she hadn’t bought anything from them yet!
Yes, I haven’t ever been scammed, but I definitely have bought things that really were not as nice as advertised. Pretty much going back to buying at the store, need to see it, touch it, feel it. The only other thing I do is buy things recommended like what you recommended ☹️
I wonder if you can sue them for not getting a signed consent for using your picture? I bought the castor oil after you said how good it was and it is so sticky I don’t know how to put it on my face. Do you dilute it or use it right out of the bottle? Then you said you used it on your hair, please tell me how you do this because there are no directions on the bottle. Thanks,
When I use it on my skin, I don’t dilute it with anything. It’s thick, for sure, but I rub it in my hands to get it warm, which makes it feel not as thick, and then rub it in my skin.
For my hair, I use a 6-ounce bottle and add 2.5 ounces of castor oil, 3 ounces of jojoba oil, and 1/2 ounce of rosemary oil.
A friend of ours from church won a major settlement from a company using his
photos illegally. He now has embedded copyright writing diagonally across
all his photos, but using a personal photo of you, is another level of plain
evil. I take care of my 90 year old Mom and my BFF stopped me before I purchased health aid products the Chinese Company TEMU because of false advertising. Nothing worse than preying on people already struggling.
I was so worried it was your shed/workshop people you were furious at when I saw the teaser in my email!!
How infuriating!! I have often wondered why Meta doesn’t at least find out if a company is legitimate, but we all know the an$$$$wer to that.
That is awful Kristi! They have violated you as a person! I did comment on the ad you shared but like yours it was taken down. If you find any way of recourse – please let us know so we can write letters, sign petitions, or anything that will help.
This is one I’ve never heard of or imagined. I’m so sick of the shilling of this or that with fake pictures or even fake people. Add in the “famous” people endorsing stuff. Are they really or being used. I’m with you with anger and discust.
I saw an ad on Instagram from what appeared to be Dick’s Sporting Goods, advertising a really great sneaker sale. It look me awhile to realize those sales were too good and this company wasn’t Dick’s. So you can’t even totally trust the businesses that appear to be businesses you can trust! I couldn’t believe Meta wasn’t able to weed that crap out.
If you watermark your photos, does that help?
If you follow the link Kristi posted, click on the 3 dots in the corner & report this ad as the scam that it is.
I left a nasty message on their post. Good grief! This is so annoying – for me to hear about it but especially for you!
you need to start putting a logo on your pictures – that really helps
Thank you so much. I absolutely agree
. We all need the “ buyer beware “ mindset! Such a sad commentary on our times.
Kristi, I’ve never commented before, but I’ve been following you for a while and love your blog! This happens to a friend of mine a lot (photo stealing). She has a popular travel blog and has seen her photos used by tour companies advertising their services. She found a company that mines the internet for anyone using her photos. They contact the companies and demand that they either stop using the photos or pay the rightful owner a fee for their use. They keep a small percentage of what they collect on her behalf. She has been very happy with the service. I’ll contact her and get the name.
When you see photos online, you can google search the photo and see where it originates, or shows up elsewhere.
So diligent consumers can use that when seeing before and after photos.
Start using a watermark on all your photos. My sister was scammed of $5000.00. It happens so much more than we know I am glad you are warning everyone. Be Blessed.
That’s so terrible! And so personal to use someone else’s face without permission! Not to mention illegal.
I recently tried to hire a TaskRabbit person to patch some really large holes in my drywall that were left after I removed some very old, yellowed surround sound speakers that we’ve never used since moving in almost a decade ago. I’ve used this app before for other services and never had an issue. But this woman I booked the task with “rescheduled” on me, but said she was doing it outside the app because her calendar didn’t sync well with the app. I should have known. When I got charged at the originally scheduled time, she said don’t worry, it’s just pending for now until I come tomorrow. Then she had an “emergency” for the rescheduled time and said she’d come the next day. Well, after that she just never showed. And what I learned is that within 24 hours after the scheduled time, you can easily tell the app that the task was cancelled. And get/keep your money. But by her convincing me to wait the extra day, she was able to keep the money!!! I had to deal with the app folks to eventually get a refund, but they don’t take it from her. She gets to keep it. So crazy! What a scam! I told the customer service rep that they need to kick this woman off the app, but they said she gets a chance to tell her side. I can only imagine the BS she will come up with. She never showed, just kept “rescheduling”. It’s super sad how these scammers get away with stuff.
Kristi…I can’t believe these people have stolen your photos and are using them to sell their stuff. This is the worst scamming…it’s almost like you have been molested. I think you should get an attorney and see if anything can be done about this. It’s very scary.
Kristi, I’m so sorry I copied a photo of your kitchen and have it on my vent-a-hood. I will take it down immediately and destroy it. I would never do anything to harm you or anyone else.
I don’t care about you having a picture of my kitchen. 🙂 That’s not a problem. Now if you were using my photo to advertise your remodeling services, that would be an issue. 😀
Kristi…Oh thank you. You have no worries about me using your photos at all for anything but my wishing pleasure.
You may be able to file a DMCA (Digital Millenium and Copyright Act) takedown notice with META/Facebook against those sites using stolen images, particularly the site using your image and likeness. The law is more particular about image/likeness violations; you have the right to exclusive use of your own image and likeness. META probably has some kind of fillable form on the site that you can file.
Kristi, lm so glad you haven’t lost money. We all need to beware of AI. It’s pretty scary.
Also on facebook they are coping peoples whole facebook page. So don’t accept friend request witout due gilicence. Our whole internet experience has change with Meta. I dont buy anything off facebook ads. A friend bought shoes from temu and got chopsticks. She lost on $20 , but l tried to tell her not to trust them. .Her answer was but its on facebook. The scams are everywhere.
Speaking of scams…whole house generators. They seek you the huge whole house one but most do a load check based on everything being on all at once. The tries to size ours with the pool heater, 2 furnaces (yes furnaces used in the winter), 2 ac units (yes like you’d use these at the same time as the furnace), dishwasher, washing machine, microwave…basically with everything in the entire house turned on. That’s simply not the way we live.
We ended up getting an electrician to redo our panel, make it plug ready, which cost about $1000, and purchased a portable generator, 14kw, for another $1000. This has worked for every outage we had, winter and summer, with no issues. Yes, it’s a manual but easy process to do, yes you need to add gas, and if you have health issues this may not be the best option, but we just couldn’t justify the upward of $22,000 for a once or twice a year outage.
We also decided to forgo the whole house generator after my friend in Houston told me of their experience after Beryl. She said that half of the houses in her (very nice) neighborhood with whole house generators were without power. For some reason, they just didn’t work. I don’t know why. But she told me about her neighbor having something in their breaker box where they could plug in a portable generator. I’m going to look into that and buy a gas-powered generator. In the meantime, I’ve also purchased a very nice Jackery. I like the idea of having a gas-powered and a solar generator. I want to buy a Honda gas-powered generator. I’ve heard good things about them, but I haven’t made the final decision yet.
Jackery’s are great! One charge lasts a long time and puts out plenty of power.
I bought those same ferns your mom did, such a scam. I should have known too good to be true for the price!
I literally took your call to action to heart. I left a review stating one of their before and after photos was stolen from a popular blogger. I’m sure the other 5 5-start reviews were just as fake as your retouched after photo.
I got scammed on Instagram with the “Postage Stamps 50% off” ad. It looks like the postal office official logo, the stamps all look real, but after I ordered them I started seeing “scam” on the comments. When I got them in the mail, I took them right to the post office and asked them if they were fakes. Sure enough, they said they were!!! The clerk told me I could TRY to use them, but she couldn’t guarantee they would pass as legal. Do I want to risk a bill or card to my grandkids being thrown into the dead letter bin? NO! So I vowed to never buy through an ad on Facebook or Instagram!!! I can’t believe they used your photos, but I’ve heard that can happen. Guess that’s why so many people don’t post photos anymore!