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Facebook Marketplace Scam: A Scam to Watch out For (1st Hand Experience)

by Ryan Shell on May 13, 2010

As I prepare for my upcoming move to New York City I’ve opted to put some items (car, washer/dryer and a mountain bike) up for sale. In doing so, someone suggested that I try Facebook Marketplace – so I did.

The posting process was simple, but no less than two hours after posting my mountain bike to the Marketplace I received an email that immediately raised a few flags in my mind.

In the first correspondence the sender asked about the bike, used bad grammar and claimed to be from Canada – it just seemed fishy. For some reason the original email has disappeared from my Inbox, but my reply and several other emails are below. I responded simply to figure out if he was indeed a scammer.

As you read this, see if you can figure out the scam.

Me – “I’m the first owner of the bike and it’s in excellent condition. The final price is $800, which is $200 less than I have it listed for on Craigslist. You’d also have to pay for shipping – I’d take it to the local bike shop and have them ship it – probably cost $100 max.

I won’t be sending the bike until payment is received in the form of a certified check. You could also wire the money to my bank account.”

Derek (heryson.dman@yahoo.com) - “Thanks for your mail, I really do appreciate it, Well Everything sounds well and I guess that the bike is in excellent condition? I am okay with the price. So, I would want you to keep all other buyer’s off and also delete the advert from the website. Concerning payment my client will issue you a check, since I don’t have the funds in your currency. FOR CONVENIENT AND EASY TRANSACTION,I HAVE A SHIPPING AGENT THAT WOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PICK UP as soon as you receive payment for the Item.I will therefore need the following information of you to forward to my client before he sends payment.

NAME IN FULL……..
ADDRESS IN FULL….
CITY…….
STATE…
COUNTRY……….
ZIPCODE…….
CELL/OFFICE/HOME
PHONE NUMBER.
EMAIL ADDRESS

I await your urgent response.

Thanks

Derek”

Me – “Um, you can mail me a certified check – the only info I’ll be giving you is my address. This seems very scamish.”

Derek – “Thanks for the reply and the information you sent and am very happy,well its all good, I want you to delete the Advert from the Website. Concerning payment I have just contacted my Client now and he has said he will issue out a check of nothing less than $3,800 to your contact address in which you will remove the asking price after cashing it at your bank, so i would want you to get an extra $100 for your running around and then send the rest of the money to my shipping agent via western union money transfer SINCE I WILL BE HANDLING THE SHIPMENT so that they will use for all their flight charges and for the insurance of the shipment when being shipped and also I would want you to do this for me because the shipper also has some other shipments of mine to handle for me in the state. I hope I can trust you on this? The information of the shipper will probably be sent alongside with the Check or when my agent is been assigned by his company for my shipments. I will notify you if my client has sent the payment and he will contact you to confirm the details you gave to me, So that there won’t be any mistake whatsoever when sending the payment. Looking forward to complete this transaction with you. Get back to me as soon as possible so that we can proceed with the transaction..

Note: All western union charges and bank fee for cashing must be deducted from the Shipping funds..

Thanks

Derek”

Me – “This is a scam. I’m now going to mark your email address as spam.”

The Scam

Here’s how I think this would have played out. Had I proceeded he probably would have sent a check of some sort, hoped I’d cashed it and then sent him the balance… only later to be contacted by my financial institution to learn that the check bounced. By then I would have already mailed this guy a large chunk of change.

Puzzled

Maybe it was a freak thing, but it sure seems strange that this guy reached out to me so shortly after I posted something on Facebook Marketplace. I’ve got stuff on Craigslist where I figured I’d surely have scammers reach out to me, but it hasn’t happened yet.

I’d proceed with caution if/when you use Facebook Marketplace… or any other online resource for that matter.

And no, I’m not saying you shouldn’t use online resources for things of this nature, but do use common sense and when your gut says, “this seems too good to be true,” listen, because it probably is.

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About the Author

Marketing & PR pro. Social media user, cyclist, inline speed skater, volunteer, blogger, public speaker. Founded Fashables. Work at Ketchum. And I’m goofy.

  • Naa A.

    I have won the lottery more than a dozen times (as per my junk mail)! crazy isn’t it ?-that some people have found a livelihood through scams and spend so much time devising new strategies to steal money. To all of you who have not had the experience…cyber crime is real… so just trust your gut instincts to mark as spam anything you are not 100% sure about that finds its way into your inbox just like Ryan did.

  • KSR

    I just had the same email correspondence play out over the past few days and had a similiar inkling that this was a scam. I am very glad you posted this so that I have back up of this truly being a scam. All I did to find this post was to Google “FOR CONVENIENT AND EASY TRANSACTION,I HAVE A SHIPPING AGENT THAT WOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PICK UP” since that was the one thing that bothered me about someone willing to give me $6,000 for a motorcycle that they had never seen before…

  • Kass

    The same thing JUST happened to me. He was offering me about $2K for a TEXTBOOK!! It was crazy sketch, so I googled him and found this site and post.

    Watch out, people.

  • E from Philly

    Thats to funny, that dude Derek (or who ever he is) emailed me wanting to buy one of my paintings…. good try bud, better luck next time…

  • Lucy

    This is the email I received within just a few minutes after I posted my ad.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Subject: Platinum Engagement/Wedding Ring Set for $1,000
    RESPONSE TO THIS MESSAGE SHOULD BE SENT TO (heryson.dman@yahoo.com)

    Hello, I’m Derek from Kingston city, Ontario in Canada. I just came across your advert and I think I’m highly interested in purchasing your (Platinum Engagement/Wedding Ring Set ) which you offer for sale. I Due to the fact that its been a long time have been searching for it, Please Kindly get back to me as soon as possible with the necessary answers to the question in mind, Are you the first owner? What is it present condition, your final asking price? And I will also like you to send me Pictures to enable me view what I intend to purchase and to also inform you that my form of payment is through a Certified Check or a USPS Money Order .. I await your urgent response so that we can proceed further

    RESPONSE TO THIS MESSAGE SHOULD BE SENT TO (heryson.dman@yahoo.com)

    Regards
    Derek
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    So just out of curiosity, I put his email into the FB search engine and this website came up. So needless to say, he will be reported as spam :)

  • JT

    Lol…some people are just evil. Crazily, i wanted to see how it would’ve played out. Maybe i’m just risky. But it sounded like a scam from the second email so i had no hopes of actually sending this item to “Derek heryson” in Ontario Canada, unless i received a cashier’s check that actually worked. lol Well, as we all know, it didn’t work – counterfeit!

    Unfortunately, he got my address but what fool what send 2K to some random person, then have that person ship it to him – please.

    Watch out people, don’t go as far as me now that you know the truth. Plus, i’m now finding this blog.

  • http://ariaintrepid.blogspot.com Aria McLauchlan

    Anything with a sign off requesting your “urgent attention” to “close the deal as soon as possible” is instant spam material – as is the sketchy grammar and odd capitalization throughout.

    Scammers and spammers will hijack a number of different outlets by pretty much any means they can. This isn’t a reason to stop using Facebook Marketplace in particular – just be smart and alert and listen to your gut instinct, no matter the platform.

  • Dorothy

    Just got spammed by the same guy, only he did get my name, phone,#, address. Being a senior thinking this fella was serious and honest, i finally got his whole name and googled it to see if I could get information. I found your informative page. Can’t thank you enough for this information. Now if someone could help, what do I do now if he has my name, etc., but not my bank info. Waiting for your reply, Thank anyone in advance.

  • Zuzana

    Hi Ryan (and everyone else),

    I am a product manager at Oodle, the company that powers Facebook Marketplace, and I came across this blog post.

    If you don’t mind, I would like to ask you a couple of questions in order to figure out how this happened.

    We have a security system in place that automatically detects suspicious behavior and marks the scammers for removal. We also anonymize your email address and the other party’s email address in order to further protect you from fraud and in order to be able to remove offenders from our service. However, it seems that you were somehow able to receive messages from the scammer’s “real” email. That shouldn’t have happened.

    In order to figure out how that is possible, I’d need to take a look at the email headers (the stuff on top of the email) — is there any chance you could forward me the whole email conversation between you and the scammer, with all the details, to zuzana-rsblg@oodle.com?

    Also, is there a chance you could find that missing first email? It might be the key to this mystery. It should have come under the scammer’s name but from an address provided by us, something like 2113379250b74787@anon.oodle.com (but the numbers before the @ would be different), and the subject should have been Re: {your listing title}.

    For everyone else that this happened to — as long as the scammer does not have your bank account number or other financial information, you should be totally fine. These scammers operate from abroad and they can’t do anything with just your address and phone number (but they might still try to send you that fake check. If that happens, simply ignore it). If they do have your account information, call your bank immediately to see what you should do.

    We do all we can to fight the fraudsters ranging from trying to prevent them from using our site in the first place, through removing them when they act suspiciously, to educating our users on how to spot scams. But any help from our users is greatly appreciated.

  • Ryan Shell

    Zuzana,

    Thanks for your comment; I do wish it had come through long ago. This guy seems to really get around and it’s hard to believe he hasn’t been stopped thus far. I’ll see if I can find some of the old emails.

    Ryan

  • Pingback: Facebook Marketplace Scam: Update | RyanShell.com

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