Fatima Sultana Rafia thought she was dealing with an unhappy customer.
The owner of the online clothing brand Riziq had already refunded the buyer after a dispute over a dress that the customer claimed differed slightly from what had been shown during a Facebook Live session. The matter appeared resolved.
Then a post appeared in the Facebook group Fraud Alert BD.
The customer accused her business of fraud. Within hours, the comments multiplied. Anonymous Facebook accounts flooded the thread with criticism, while negative reviews began appearing on her business page.
When Rafia tried to respond to the group with order records, customer conversations and evidence that the buyer had received a refund, her post was never approved.
Then came the offer.
According to Rafia, someone contacted her privately and proposed a deal: send the returned dress free of charge as a "gift," and the post would be removed.
Instead of refusing outright, she decided to document everything.
Rafia said she continued the conversation while collecting screenshots and recordings. Once the caller believed she had agreed, he allegedly praised her business as "the best," convincing her the issue had never been about the product itself.
When Rafia presented the evidence to the Facebook group’s administrator Sabiha Akhter, she said no action was taken.
The post was deleted only after she publicly shared the recordings in a Facebook Live that later went viral. According to Rafia, it was removed by the individual who had allegedly demanded the gift, not by the group's administrators.
Her experience was not unique.
Interviews with multiple online entrepreneurs, along with screenshots, chat logs, call recordings and bank transaction records obtained by Daily Waadaa, point to a strikingly similar pattern.
Several business owners allege they were contacted after complaints about their businesses appeared in the Fraud Alert BD group. They say they were offered the same proposition: pay money, or in some cases provide free products, and the posts would disappear. Some also claim they were assured that future complaints would never be approved.
With over 800,000 members, the Facebook group Fraud Alert BD became an unofficial consumer watchdog of the country. Shoppers routinely checked it before buying from unfamiliar online stores. Business owners dreaded seeing their names appear in its feed because a single post could destroy years of hard-earned reputation overnight.
If the Facebook group labelled someone a scammer, many accepted the verdict without question.
Yet despite its influence, little is publicly known about the people running it.
The group currently has seven administrators, but none appears to use a publicly identifiable Facebook profile. Every admin account is locked, making it impossible for ordinary users to verify who they are, what their identities are, or who ultimately controls the platform.
Rafia's account closely resembles those of several other entrepreneurs interviewed by Waadaa.
Touhid Zaman, co-owner of the online clothing business Elegant String, says he was asked to pay 20,000 taka to remove a negative post.
"I asked them how they could guarantee that no new complaints would appear if I paid," he told Waadaa.
"The reply was that no new posts would be approved."
For Touhid, that response suggested the administrators were controlling not only moderation but also who could continue posting complaints.
Several business owners also described what they believe was a coordinated campaign to amplify complaints after they were published.
According to them, anonymous Facebook accounts rapidly filled comment sections with criticism, increasing the posts' reach while attacking business owners personally. Women entrepreneurs say the comments often extended beyond business disputes to include insults about their appearance, families and children.
"They don't target small pages," Touhid said. "They target businesses that are successful enough to pay."
Another business owner, who operates the page Cleopatra Home Remedies, says she paid 40,000 taka through bKash after someone from the group administrators demanded money to resolve a complaint against her business.
Business owners who spoke to Waadaa separately provided the same mobile phone number, alleging it had been used to contact them after complaints appeared in the group.
They also shared bank transaction records showing payments allegedly sent to an account whose details were provided through the Facebook account of former administrator Arian Chowdhury.
Because of banking confidentiality rules, they were unable to identify the account holder.
Rafia's husband later called the same number.
In a recorded conversation, the caller identified himself as "Muktar" and declined requests to meet in person. When asked what it would take to ensure complaints against certain businesses would no longer be approved, the caller replied that he first needed to examine the pages before discussing any arrangement.
When Waadaa contacted the same number, the caller identified himself as Arian and acknowledged being an administrator of the platform, and denied operating an extortion scheme.
He argued that impostors frequently created Facebook accounts using administrators' names before contacting business owners and demanding money.
Asked about bank account details allegedly shared through a Facebook profile bearing his name, Arian denied they came from him.
He acknowledged one incident in which a moderator allegedly accepted 2,500 taka from a business owner, saying the individual had since been removed from the group.
When asked why every administrator operated through locked or anonymous profiles, he said, "We didn't want to come forward, to deal with people."
Fraud Alert BD began during Bangladesh's e-commerce boom following the COVID-19 pandemic, when consumers increasingly relied on Facebook communities to identify fraudulent online sellers.
According to Touhid, the group originally served that purpose well.
Businesses could also pay to promote themselves through a separate Facebook page known as JS Corporation, a practice he says was viewed as legitimate advertising.
The group's influence expanded dramatically after several high-profile consumer complaints, including trader Farhana Haque Lucy, once an Evaly employee, who allegedly sold iPhones, iPads and other electronic gadgets at unusually low prices through her Facebook group, Pretty Please. According to allegations, she collected full advance payments from customers – many of them women – but failed to deliver the products.
In 2025, Lucy was arrested over allegations of embezzling 15-20 crore taka through an Evaly-style fraud scheme.
Business owners interviewed by Waadaa say that as the group's influence grew, so did its ability to determine which businesses flourished and which struggled.
A former moderator of the platform, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Waadaa that he left the group after he discovered improper financial dealings of other moderators.
Following growing criticism, Fraud Alert BD announced new moderation policies.
In a Facebook post from their page, the group said future posts would require evidence from genuine Facebook accounts, and posts would be removed if sellers proved disputes had been resolved.
Despite the announcement, the group's administrators continue to use locked or anonymous profiles, while anonymous accounts remain active in comments.
That leaves a question: Who is watching the watchdog?