If you use Facebook you’ve probably started seeing ads that appear to be from Lowe’s Home Improvement offering to sell lawnmowers at ridiculously low prices.
I’m talking lawnmowers that sell for as much as $800 being sold on “clearance” or via a “Flash sale” for $99.
I checked into these “offers”, and as expected, they are all scams.
These scams typically start showing up in the fall when the retailers start closing out their mowers for the season. And guess what? They’re back.
Here’s an example of a fraudulent (and very dangerous) sponsored post that just popped up in my Newsfeed:
And here’s a regular display ad that’s popping up in the right sidebar:
Looks like a great deal, right?
Well, these ads are fake and so are the websites they link to.
Here’s a screenshot from a fake lowesale.shop website that I reported to the site’s web hosting company and got taken down:
If you have ever shopped for a lawnmower at a Lowe’s store or on the official Lowe’s website you know they simply don’t sell lawnmowers for $99 – and that includes the closeouts and “flash sales”.
These scammers usually aren’t from the United States (the one behind the fake, and now offline lowesale.shop is from Thailand) so they’re pretty much insulated from American law enforcement, but complaining to their web hosting company does sometimes work.
Bottom line: I strongly recommend that you not interact with any “Lowe’s” ads you see on Facebook unless they were posted by the verified Lowe’s Facebook page.
Look for the blue verification checkmark like the one in this screenshot:
Enjoy your time on Facebook, but stay safe.
If you see on one of these fake lawnmower ads that appears to be from Lowe’s, simply ignore it and move on.