An online seller has vowed to boycott Facebook Marketplace – after being targeted by scammers. Diane Lowe listed a redundant shed which had been used to store her mobility scooter on the online selling platform for £100.
It wasn’t long before the first scammer made their way into her inbox – and Diane knew straight away that it was fraudulent when they asked for her bank details. But the second scammer was much more sophisticated.
They used a fake UPS courier service as a disguise and asked Diane to make a £48 payment using PayPal. The scammer reassured Diane that the fee would secure an UPS courier to arrive at her home, dismantle and remove the shed, and then pay her the £100 in cash.
Diane attempted to make the payment only for PayPal to decline the transaction after smelling a rat. It was then that the buyer became aggressive.
The 63-year-old, from Longton, said: “He was texting me all the time. He kept writing ‘So?’, ‘So?’. He wanted screenshots but my PC crashed. He asked me to try another card but I told him I’d tried them all.
“He kept on at me. I told him I’d had all my payments declined for 24 hours. Why keep on at me? I have enough to worry about without this. He said to me ‘I know you’re disabled but make an effort to go to the petrol station to buy a pay safe card’.
“I didn’t answer him. I only get out of the house twice a month. How dare you think I can just put on a pair of shoes and go out!”
Diane had already provided her email and home address to the scammer and felt vulnerable. She was being threatened with legal action.
She added: “He told me ‘UPS informed me a cancellation is impossible and legal action may be initiated against you’. He said to me that if the fee was not paid he would sue me.
“Then he went ‘I think you are a clueless wife, if you have family and children, you want to get them in trouble for a £48 fee? The penalty is a fine of £95,000 and five years imprisonment. You’ve got 23 hours or I’ll have to inform the authorities’.”
Diane was finally able to block the scammer and now wants to warn others to watch out for similar fraudsters.
She added: “If I had paid the £48 I would have ended up losing money and probably would have had my bank account emptied. If you were single and didn’t have anybody else, then you’re going to start panicking.
“The morning after I didn’t want to eat breakfast, I felt sick to the stomach. I’m still worried that he’s so stupid he’s got somebody here that can send out legal forms but it won’t be just me to deal with, it’ll be the courts.”
Facebook issued the following advice on how to avoid scams while using the selling platform.
- Check if the Facebook profile appears new or incomplete, as this could be a sign that the account has been set up for scamming.
- Check reviews of online sellers to see what previous customers have said.
- Insist on meeting in a public space to view the product before completing any transaction.
- Don’t hand over money until you see the item for sale, and use payment options that include strong protections.
A spokesperson from Facebook said: “We don’t allow fraudulent activity and work closely with law enforcement to support investigations and keep scammers off our platforms. We continue to work closely with Stop Scams UK to help victims and remove scams at the source. We continue to invest heavily in new technologies and spent approximately $5 billion last year alone on safety and security.”
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