Ad Cloning within the Broker industry

Over the past months ‘Ad cloning’ has become an increasing concern within our industry. More and more brokers are being targeted by unscrupulous individuals/entities passing off as the real deal. As this is a growing issue, we have decided to explain what it is and how we are combating against it.

What is Ad Cloning?

 Ad Cloning is the process in which an individual will attempt to replicate a genuine company ad but change aspects to it, such as URL and Contact number. A customer may then see the ‘cloned ad’ and then contact the cloner using the fake details on the duplicated ad. This is very detrimental to our industry as it could potentially lead to the unfortunate customer paying fees to a cloner who is just going to run off with the money. 

Social Media Channels

Social media is a big target right now. Channels such as Facebook and Instagram are being hit the worse. Many of the brokers who have caught flak from this have had their Facebook ad’s replicated. As a broker ourselves, we are being very vigilant with our social media channels. If you see an ad that has our branding on please bare in mind we only advertise with the following;

0800 525 209 – This is the only number we use on our flyers, it is our freephone number, if you see an advertisement with anything but this number, do not call it and please if you can make us aware of this cloned ad.

www.appliedleasing.co.uk – Again this is the only URL we use on our marketing – follow the same steps as previously stated if you see a cloned ad.

@applied.co.uk – This is the only email domain we send email correspondence from. Marketing emails are sent out from [email protected]

3rd party sites – we have utilized many 3rd party comparison sites over the years. The only 3rd party site are advertising our deals on at the moment is Cars2Buy

Any questions regarding ‘Ad Cloning’ please do not hesitate to contact us via telephone or email on –  0800 525 209 or [email protected]