[April Bradford]

Facebook Marketplace Scam Targeting Sellers​

Today, I'm sharing a recent Facebook Marketplace scam experience by member Maggie.

Here's the information she provided about the experience.

'On the weekend I advertised two items for sale on Facebook Marketplace and had three quick responses. The first one asked for my email address, which sounded unnecessary and suspicious, so I refused to supply it. The "buyer" said they understood and that was that. '

'The next day, however, I received an enquiry for one item and the message that said, "Ok I take but I am currently busy with work, I will send a DPD postman to your home to give you your money in cash and collect the item."'

'The second message, for the other item said, "Hello okay I'm buying but I could take it tomorrow what time are you available? Since I am busy with work, I will send a FedEx express postman to your home to give you your money and collect the item."'

'I checked the FedEx and DPD sites and neither FedEx nor DPD offer such services and, in fact, have posted warnings about these scams.'

'Marketplace itself has an option for reporting potential or actual fraud.'

'Report A Buyer Scam

To report a scam by a buyer on Marketplace:

1. From your Feed, in the left menu, click Marketplace.

2. Click Your Account.

3. Click Your listings.

4. Click a listing the buyer purchased.

5. Click the message between you and the buyer. If you can't find the message, click See More.

6. Then click Report Buyer.

7. Click Scam, then follow the on-screen instructions to submit your report.'

'The intent of these scams is to trick you into paying for insurance for the items and thus disclose your banking details to pay for the insurance. '

'The Messenger messages came from two different people but the similarity of the messages made me check it out before replying.'

'Please warn other potential sellers of this scam.'

Please be careful, members. A huge thank you to member Maggie for sharing this.