If you’ve logged into your Facebook account since this past Thursday, you might have noticed something’s different…  That’s right, those are scammiest Facebook ads you’ve seen yet.

According to insiders, on Thursday an edict came down from the ‘executive level’ to dramatically loosen the ad quality standards for Facebook’s image and text advertisements.  Up until this point, potential advertisers and their ‘affiliates’ (commission-only marketing agents) have had to meet stringent discretion guidelines to ensure users weren’t being scammed by fraudulent advertisements and ‘exclusive offers’.

The floodgates however are now open…  According to a source close to these advertisers, Facebook has decided to allow all kinds of formerly regulated advertisements including:

• “Work-at-Home” Scams
• “Free Trial” Diet Products that bill your credit card well before the trial period ends, then refuse to let you cancel
• “Free Federal Grant Money” rackets where you pay get a list of ’secret’ free grant programs (no such thing as a free lunch)
• “Free Ringtone” subscription services (The Florida Attorney General’s Office had a field day with this one)
• “Free IQ Surveys” that feed you a bunch of easily answered questions before you are required to pay to see the results.
• “Cash4Gold” Programs encouraging you to shove your jewelery in an envelope and mail it in for a third of its actual value

The list goes on, reports also indicate ‘male enhancement’ products are making it through to users.  Facebook has reportedly also significantly increased the daily spending limits for shady advertisers, enabling them to spam a wider array of users.

Some recent gems:

Wads of cash and the illegal use of celebrity images may be bringing in the clicks, but when users end up getting ripped off by all of these “free” offers, chances are they have every right to as why Facebook is suddenly allowing all this crap.

Are they that far behind MySpace in advertising revenue that they need to stoop this far?  Or is this just a grand fishing experiment to find out how much scammers are willing to pay when they’re not having any luck with legitimate advertisers?

Post a comment with the most ridiculous Facebook ad you’ve seen this week…maybe we can get them to rethink spamming their users