Scammers peddling bogus tax breaks find traction on Facebook

Hundreds of ads on Facebook promised U.S. homeowners that they were eligible for huge state tax breaks if they installed new solar-energy panels. There was just one catch: None of it was true.

The scam ads used photos of nearly every U.S. governor — and sometimes President Trump — to claim that with new, lucrative tax incentives, people might actually make money by installing solar technology on their homes. Facebook users only needed to enter their addresses, email, utility information and phone number to find out more.

Those incentives don't exist.

While the ads didn't aim to bilk people of money directly — and it wasn't possible to buy solar panels through these ads — they led to websites that harvested personal information that could be used to expose respondents to future come-ons, both scammy and legitimate. It's not clear that the data was actually used in such a manner.

Facebook apparently didn't take action until notified by state-government officials who noticed the ads.