Facebook Marketplace lets users buy and sell second-hand items, with over a billion shoppers every month. A consumer can buy pretty much anything it’s legal to sell – from televisions to wardrobes and even cars – on Facebook Marketplace. One problem with this unregulated economy is there are also scammers looking to rip people off.
Dan Ariely , a published author on online misinformation, tells Digital Journal about the most common Facebook Marketplace scams to watch out for. Payment and overpayment scams In this popular scam, thieves posing as buyers purchase an item might say they’ve paid for it, but actually haven’t. They could send a fake cheque, use a dodgy payment method, or even claim they’ve overpaid and want some cash back.
They might also try to use payment methods that can be easily cancelled after you’ve posted the item, leaving you out of pocket. In order to prevent yourself from being victimised, Ariely suggests to: Fake returns In this scam, the buyer claims that they did not like or don’t want the item after buying it. They’ll then ask to return it for a full refund.
The scammer will then either keep the original item and never send it back, return a broken or different item altogether, or even provide fake tracking info to claim they’ve returned it. Either way, you lose out if you refund before getting the item back in the same condition. In order to avoid this type of scam, Ariely recommends to always wait until you receive the item and c.