If you’re tempted to pre-purchase Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency before its launch date, then you need to hold off that thought for a while. A recent report has revealed that misleading accounts are already offering false claims about Facebook’s Libra on the social media platform. Dozens of accounts have been reported trying to sell Libra at a discount rate through third-party sites.

 

***Plat4om giveaway: Check the picture at the end for a surprise.***

 

Dozens of Facebook accounts, pages and groups have now started spreading lies across Facebook and Instagram. The claim to be the official hub for the social media giant’s cryptocurrency.

 

This influx of scammers seems to have hit Facebook by surprise as they didn’t seem to have envisaged this. It is enough that the company is still struggling to convince regulators that they are able to handle a global currency. 

 

 

The latest news is that Facebook is willing to be patient enough to allay all fears before launching the currency. However, it does seem like world leaders will now have a hard time giving it a nod. This will inherently delay the project way longer than its intended launch period.

 

The fake pages the scammers are leading users to also look quite convincing. They have Facebook’s logo and Libra’s official images. Some have even gone as far as featuring photos of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the site. They redirect potential victims to other pages that seem to sell legitimate Libra tokens.

 

Facebook and scam

In the past, Facebook has had to deal with cryptocurrency-related scams. They had to pay a settlement of $3.7 million (about ₦1.3 billion) to the founder of a UK finance website, MoneySavingExpert. Apparently, fake ads with the face of the owner, Martin Lewis, appeared on the social media platform. Facebook had to bear the liability for these illegitimate ads.

 

 

Fake accounts are also all over Facebook, promoting sales of various cryptocurrencies. But this particular sort of scam hits the social media company directly. These scam pages, according to reports, did not just limit their reach to Facebook and Instagram. The news is that they have stretched their tentacles to Twitter and YouTube too.

 

In fact, there are reports that a scam site has already registered the Calibra.com domain. The site is running ads that it is pre-selling Facebook’s Libra. However, the site has since been taken down.

 

Facebook has responded to all these by saying that they remove ads and pages that violate their policies immediately they are aware of them. They also say they are working to improve scam detection on the platform. Clearly, if they did not before, they obviously need to now.