There was an agency called Checkmate Agency that entered the Facebook account market quite some time ago and actively built its brand by buying a lot of advertising. I worked with them a little myself. Unfortunately, the guys had to shut down their operations due to constant turbulence with Facebook — but they made all the payments and fulfilled every obligation to their partners (a pretty rare case in our market, where an agency shuts down without anyone losing money).

And scammers were quick to take advantage of the situation, grabbing the usernames and pretending to represent the agency. Apparently, someone has already fallen for this scam, since Checkmate is being discussed in industry chats. So if some "Checkmate manager" contacts you and offers to run traffic, block them immediately.

And for the future, make sure to double-check agency representatives by asking people you know (ideally, have them share trusted contacts — it helps them build credibility with the manager and gives you more confidence). But ideally, you should be running traffic through your own agency accounts so nobody can scam you. That's exactly what some teams are starting to do.

P.S. Overall, the market has been hit by a wave of agency shutdowns, so I doubt this will be the last high-profile case of its kind.

There was an agency called Checkmate Agency that entered the Facebook account market quite some time ago and actively built its brand by buying a lot of advertising. I worked with them a little myself. Unfortunately, the guys had to shut down their operations due to constant turbulence with Facebook — but they made all the payments and fulfilled every obligation to their partners (a pretty rare case in our market, where an agency shuts down without anyone losing money).

And scammers were quick to take advantage of the situation, grabbing the usernames and pretending to represent the agency. Apparently, someone has already fallen for this scam, since Checkmate is being discussed in industry chats. So if some "Checkmate manager" contacts you and offers to run traffic, block them immediately.

And for the future, make sure to double-check agency representatives by asking people you know (ideally, have them share trusted contacts — it helps them build credibility with the manager and gives you more confidence). But ideally, you should be running traffic through your own agency accounts so nobody can scam you. That's exactly what some teams are starting to do.

P.S. Overall, the market has been hit by a wave of agency shutdowns, so I doubt this will be the last high-profile case of its kind.

There was an agency called Checkmate Agency that entered the Facebook account market quite some time ago and actively built its brand by buying a lot of advertising. I worked with them a little myself. Unfortunately, the guys had to shut down their operations due to constant turbulence with Facebook — but they made all the payments and fulfilled every obligation to their partners (a pretty rare case in our market, where an agency shuts down without anyone losing money).

And scammers were quick to take advantage of the situation, grabbing the usernames and pretending to represent the agency. Apparently, someone has already fallen for this scam, since Checkmate is being discussed in industry chats. So if some "Checkmate manager" contacts you and offers to run traffic, block them immediately.

And for the future, make sure to double-check agency representatives by asking people you know (ideally, have them share trusted contacts — it helps them build credibility with the manager and gives you more confidence). But ideally, you should be running traffic through your own agency accounts so nobody can scam you. That's exactly what some teams are starting to do.

P.S. Overall, the market has been hit by a wave of agency shutdowns, so I doubt this will be the last high-profile case of its kind.

There was an agency called Checkmate Agency that entered the Facebook account market quite some time ago and actively built its brand by buying a lot of advertising. I worked with them a little myself. Unfortunately, the guys had to shut down their operations due to constant turbulence with Facebook — but they made all the payments and fulfilled every obligation to their partners (a pretty rare case in our market, where an agency shuts down without anyone losing money).

And scammers were quick to take advantage of the situation, grabbing the usernames and pretending to represent the agency. Apparently, someone has already fallen for this scam, since Checkmate is being discussed in industry chats. So if some "Checkmate manager" contacts you and offers to run traffic, block them immediately.

And for the future, make sure to double-check agency representatives by asking people you know (ideally, have them share trusted contacts — it helps them build credibility with the manager and gives you more confidence). But ideally, you should be running traffic through your own agency accounts so nobody can scam you. That's exactly what some teams are starting to do.

P.S. Overall, the market has been hit by a wave of agency shutdowns, so I doubt this will be the last high-profile case of its kind.