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Scammers on Facebook Marketplace

Posted by Thomas Ducpham on Oct 6th 2017

Scammers on Facebook Marketplace

I’ve worked a number of jobs throughout my career, but I’ve never accumulated such a large number of horror stories in such a short amount of time like I did while in the phone relay industry. This service was extremely popular before the dawn of the smartphone – during a time where flip phones were still a thing and text messages were actually kind of expensive. It’s a service that people who are hard-of-hearing can use to make regular phone calls to anyone. They would call in to a service center where a middleman like myself would act as a text to speech mediator. If they needed to schedule a doctor’s appointment for example, they would type to a relay operator using their computer or a TTY machine (they still have some of these setup at local retailers like Target), the relay operator would then read their response to the appointment clerk and type out what they’ve said back to the caller.


The service was provided by the government and it was free to use – anyone can call or message in (using a variety of instant messaging apps like AOL, AIM, Yahoo, and MSN). That was also its biggest problem too. It didn’t matter if you legitimately needed to use the service, anyone can take advantage of it. I can’t legally share the exact details of any specific calls, so I’d have to let you fill in the blanks with this example.

A person messages in. Directs me to call a phone number and an older female voice picks up on the other line. The person types, and I proceed in saying:

“Hello, we are some scary government company that sounds very official and you owe us raspberry cakes and puppies. If you don’t give us a Walmart gift card with specifically $485.92 on it (because that’s how much you owe), we will freeze your accounts with some bank that I randomly picked that sounds obviously fake.”

You think that’s bad? People regularly fell for it. As the middle-man, we couldn’t interrupt the call or break the 4th wall – unless you were having a meltdown at work and didn’t mind losing your job. We had the ability to report it to our managers to take care of, but it was scary to see the sheer number of calls that turned into this.

It was a popular service for scammers because it was free, had a large community and it was easy to use.

Do you think you can name any other free services that fall under the same category?

With the boom of social media, Facebook has been one of the top free communities to ever hit the internet. With over one billion active users (according to their own statistics), it’s become an attractive venue for scammers to take advantage of — especially with Facebook’s launch of its free marketplace. Essentially, the marketplace is open to all its users and is best described as a friendlier version of the popular buy/sell website, Craigslist. Users can post advertisements for just about anything and is generally managed by a group administrators.

I’ve personally used it a few times – in fact, I prefer it to Craigslist. With Facebook, a seller can choose to share his picture, age, and profile. It adds that layer of legitimacy that you don’t normally find in other platforms.

Oh and It’s user friendly, easy to use, and best of all; it’s free!


Wait . . . .


This sounds familiar.


You guessed it!


Fake profiles in the marketplace are everywhere offering too-good-to-be-true services like:


  • You don’t need a job to make money!
  • Make $500 a day by clicking a few buttons!
  • Or Lose pregnancy belly-fat easy!

What I always thought was funny was that they usually provide pictures of what looks like a bank statement, or a stack of $100 bills over a computer to attract victims – they always seem to follow a theme or pattern. Facebook does have a spam algorithm that it does follow. Meaning that if a post has the workings of a typical spam post, it will flag the account.

I do think that spam accounts are getting clever.I noticed a trend where these accounts will respond to its victims, either defending their post from people whom claim otherwise, or simply interacting with people to encourage their legitimacy.They want you to have you feel that there is a real person behind the screen, and even offer video calls!


So why do people fall for these scams?

I remember in college, my philosophy professor noted that Humans are good in nature.Meaning that we normally align ourselves to trust one another, as fellow members of the same society.Some people are naturally weary, while others can be completely oblivious and wear their heart on their sleeve. Scammers will always exist in one form or another, if there are people that can be taken advantage of – there will be people willing to take advantage.Some groups are more susceptible than others like children and the elderly, people whom do not use computers on a regular basis, and new adaptors to the internet.


*Here are some tips to follow to avoid getting scammed.

  • If it’s too good to be true, it probably is
  • If you must ask if something is a scam, it also probably is.
  • Don’t believe everything you read online, unless you can verify its source
  • You should never have to pay money to make money (be wary of Pyramid Schemes, “application fees”, investments, Western Union scams, Check fraud, etc..)
  • Verify all job leads with the headquarters of a company.
  • Secure your personal information, never submit your phone number, address, full name, SSN to anyone online.
  • If someone links you to a different website rather than give you information in a post or a message, do not click the link.
  • If someone won’t disclose what’s involved with a job/monetary activity unless your private message them, there’s probably a malicious reason for it
  • Pay attention to other posters.If a user posts a warning, they generally do not have a reason to lie.
  • Report all content that doesn’t belong on Facebook or any social media.



and lastly


  • Question everything. Enlighten yourself, do research.


Scammers won’t go away any time soon, but you are less likely to fall victim to them the more educated you become.Not only you should educate yourself, but educate those who are less inclined to know.Please share this article with someone who you think would benefit from this.Thank you for reading.