Facebook marketplace scam web sites

peterb26

Frankly I think this is a disgrace but there’s no point in moaning to Facebook as they are physically approving all the posts I’m referring to,  maybe Martin can give it some publicity?

I looked for a Dewalt cordless tool recently, found one for £78.  Looked at the seller profile, dozens of desirable items, bikes, luxury furniture, electronics etc etc.  All new and all £78.

just out of morbid curiosity, I contacted the seller.  Immediate response saying “yeah go to our website, and it’ll be shipped in 3 days”.  The web site was listed in every scam buster site I know, and they obviously just harvest the credit card and run amok with it.  !!!!!!. 😡.  The web sites seem to get taken down regularly, but they then set up another one, just the same.

However…..

This isn’t a one off scammer,  I have so far found over 100 scammers within 10 miles of my house, all doing the same thing.  Sometimes the web site changes, sometime the price is £80 or £82 but all identical.  Pages of new product at ridiculous cheap prices.

I report each one to Facebook (what a waste of time that is) but nationally there must be hundreds of thousands of scam posts like this, and as I mentioned, Facebook “approve” every market place post, so they clearly can’t be bothered to do anything to stop it.

one wonders how many millions of pounds are scammed from credit cards used in this scam?

rant over! 

Ps here’s the latest response.  They always say “be quick” because the sites get taken down regularly.

“Hello, because our warehouse is now clearing the stock, it is very discounted and the quantity is limited. If you are interested, please place your order as soon as possible.

Our warehouse is located in Gourock and items are brand new with a one year warranty.

London Warehouse address：115 Worship Street

Delivery within 3-5 days after placing the order, free shipping, if there is any quality problem, a full refund will be given within 30 days, and a tracking number will be given to you after delivery”

The website was zwmalla on a shop domain,

soolin

This is as old as the hills though- the scammers just move with the buyers- at the moment there are buyers on FB so they scam there, it used to be Gumtree.

If facebook vetted every post or every user then genuine users would be the first to complain about their liberty being taken away, so FB, or indeed any other site can't win. They either use the site to make proper money and empty tens of thousands of people to vet everyone, or they leave us all to use a bit of common sense.

If these sites are taking credit cards then the only losers are the credit card company- so maybe they need to look at their systems.

Lastly, I fear some people actually want to be scammed, daft I know !  I sat and watched a big scam go down across several sites twice, once for handbags and once for hard to find garden furniture. I posted on the threads that it was a scam, and people continued to send money , I warned admin on all the groups they posted in- and got warnings from several about trying to take down a legitimate business- I got banned from at least one group for keep contacting admin to say these were scams. Nobody cared- they just all wanted to send money (this was a bank transfer scam) and ignored warnings. 

forgotmyname

Facebook would be the last place I would think of looking for an item like that.    You can get "DeWalt" tools VERY cheaply well it may have
a label you need to attach yourself with Dewalt on on but it will be a cheap or not so cheap fake.

DCD778M2T-SFGB 18V 6Ah XR BrushlessDrill  £39.99

Bargain or what? Even comes with a case. And no its not real its a cheap item that may not be 18v and 100% will not have a 6Ah battery.

Scammers are easy to avoid, use proper retail outlets.