Rob and Melissa Stephenson, of Flea Market Flipper, talk about how they almost got scammed on Facebook Marketplace.
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How We Almost Got Scammed On Facebook Marketplace
Rob: What's up, Pro Flippers! On today's episode we are talking about how we almost got scammed on Facebook Marketplace.
Melissa: And what to look out for so it does not happen to you.
Rob: All right guys, so recently we were traveling and big surprise we were looking for items to buy to pay for our trip. So we, I don't even know how far away we were six or seven hours away from our house. And I'm looking around like I always do and I found an amazing deal on a range, a oven, oven, cooktop combo was a range that we actually found.
Melissa: Before you dive into that real quick, so if you're new to us, we love to go on road trips but we always bring our little trailer or a enclosed trailer or like when we go around the country we, bring our, our enclosed trailer or what is the thing that goes on the back of the car? Extended hitch.
Extended hitch. We've done that. So we can pick up something because we want to come back, list the thing and more than pay for our trip. Partly because it's a game, but partly because you can still find stuff and make money. And then the trip is partly a write off. So, and I'm not a CPA, I'm not telling you any tax advice, I'm just telling you what we do.
So, ask a tax expert if you can write off your trip for what what you're doing. But we love to do it and we do it a lot. So.
Rob: We do. So this range that I found the problem was it showed it in my feed, while I was looking through Facebook Marketplace and I looked I actually sent a message on it.
They were asking $600 for it. I offered them $350. They wrote back pretty quickly and said hey the lowest I can go is $400. I think that was it. Yeah, $400 because I offered $350 on it. Said the lowest I can go is $400. I wrote back and said, okay, I can do the $400. The comps on this, I should have been able to get between five and, sorry, $4,000 and $5,000 on it.
So that meets my criteria. I want to be able to make 10 X on whatever I'm investing. And that was the case with this. So I wrote back and said, okay, I can do $400 and then I looked and surprisingly it was six hours away from where was like, oh no. That's too far. So I wrote them back and said listen, I I don't know how this got into my feed I was looking for local stuff and it's showing six hours and they wrote back with a thumbs up that no big deal.
So I thought okay, well, then I I thought well, let me see how far out of the way this is. So I looked on our route to go back home, and it was only going to add three hours to our time home. It was six hours from where we were but it was in a roundabout way on the way back. So we would have only lost three hours had we got it.
Melissa: And for four thousand dollars, exactly, it was worth it.
Rob: Exactly.
So I messaged them back and said hey, I talked my wife into going, we are we will be coming through on this day, is it possible to come by and pick it up and the person said yeah, no problem I can have my husband and my son help you load it. Please send me a deposit so I can hold it for you. Now that right there threw a little bit of a red flag because I don't do deposits.
I don't send people deposits. I set up an arrangement for them, and then I go and do it. And I'm very cordial with what I do. I'm very, I feel like I'm thoughtful because I'm, I'm always sending people, hey, I'm on my way. Eta is this time and then I threw out the process it was a six hour drive I probably had three hours, what it said.
We're three hours out at one hour I would have said we were one hour out. So I'm always communicating with them, so they know what's going on and I'm not just ghosting them because there's so many people out there right now that will ghost you on marketplace. You have no idea what's going on. You have no idea if they're coming
Melissa: How many, how many times have we heard that when we've picked stuff up recently?
They're like, oh, I didn't know if you were going to show up. I didn't know, like if you, we hear that a lot when we buy stuff. And because, and it's like, no, we're people. Like, it's, it syncs up.
Rob: I feel bad that there are a lot of flaky people on Marketplace. So I don't want to be one of those flaky people.
Flaky persons is that the right grammar? Flaky people. A flaky person or people whatever it is. I I want to be very thoughtful and I want to be able to communicate with the person that I'm buying stuff from to let them know I feel like it's the right thing to do. It's cordial. Anyway, so anyways, they said they wanted a deposit for this range and right away.
I said listen I don't feel comfortable doing that nor do I know how to send you a deposit for that I said, I can message you back and it was I think two days out from when we were actually gonna pick it up. I said I can message you back and, and I can let you, or, I can see that you still have it before we actually head that way.
And she said fine, the person said fine, no big deal. So I thought, okay, everything's fine, it's okay. And then I started thinking, what if this is a scam? I don't know how I even thought more into it.
Melissa: No, it's because we were sitting at dinner with our niece and she said, make sure it's not a scam because she just got scammed.
She got a scam. She didn't do go through it. Like she didn't get scammed. But, and she told us what to, like, how she looked at it. It was at dinner that you were 'cause we were like,
Rob: that's when I started thinking more into it.
Melissa: Yeah. You started thinking more into it. And we were talking about do we make the drive? Do we not? But she gave you an address. Yeah. Oh, that was it. She gave you a physical address to go so I could map it. So you could map it. And so, and it was not a very, what, what did you say?
Rob: It was like a small, just a smaller home. Yeah. And for this oven that we are getting. It was a 48 inch oven.
Melissa: So it probably would have come out of a big, but it could have been in a warehouse too.
So you never know.
Rob: It could have been, but it was more of a commercial or a high, high end house that it should have come out of. And so right there, it's a little bit of a red flag. And the reason she sent me the address, all I did was throw it into Google and looked at Google, whatever. Google will show you actually the picture of the address at the house.
So that right there threw a little bit of a red flag. And I'm like, and I was thinking about it and you're right. Then we asked my niece about it and my niece said somebody gave her a wrong address.
Melissa: And what she did was she took the, what was the thing she was buying? She took Google Lens, took the picture, and found that picture, posted it, A reverse picture search.
It's a reverse picture search. That was the thing, yeah, and found it, posted it on the internet somewhere else. So, if you know it's not their picture, and it's somewhere else on the internet. So she tried to do that with this one, but they had cropped it, like
Rob: And turned the picture turned it sideways,
Melissa: so, probably so that can't be done.
Yeah. So it was a little bit weird. So we're like, that's cropped like that. That's, it's definitely not legit. So then we're like, okay, we figured out it was not legit, but then you still had communication with her.
Rob: Well, I did. I messaged her and said, Hey, is there any way that I can call you? This is going to be a long trip.
I want to make sure I have a couple more questions. Can I call you? And her response back to me was, you haven't given me a deposit. How do you even know this is still available? And for somebody to write back to that, automatically I'm like, okay, this is a scam. Nobody would respond to something like that, trying to get the deposit that much out of me.
So right away, I didn't respond again and they didn't respond back either. But I knew it was a scam after that.
Melissa: So we wouldn't have gotten scammed out of money, because you're never going to give a deposit. But we almost put an extra three hours.
On our trip for no reason. So that would have been really upsetting.
So good thing we dove into it. But if you have a question, if an item is legit, cause you'll see those scams sometimes. I see them on like RVs a lot. Sometimes they use like it, but you can see it posted in multiple different locations on marketplace. So it'll be the same picture and it's posted a whole bunch of different zip codes. So that's one way to check it. But the reverse search was pretty cool.
Rob: So let's break down the whole process and give you guys some tips on this. So, the first thing that I did when I actually saw this listing and I started thinking that it could be a scam is I went and clicked on, the seller's picture.
And it showed how long the seller had been registered, it showed that she didn't have any pictures, she didn't have any posts, anything like that.
Melissa: And she, oh, her account was this year, that's why.
Rob: This year, so. That was, all that stuff right there throws a little bit of a red flag people that sell on marketplace typically have sold other stuff or they have pictures for their friends and family.
They have all that kind of stuff. It wasn't even locked. It wasn't anything like that. They just didn't have anything. So that right there showed a little bit that it could be a scam.
Melissa: You're so you're giving people the benefit of the doubt you're very much like in the beginning.
Rob: But it's all communication. It's communication back and forth.
So, that last thing that, you know, sealed the coffin was, hey, why, you haven't given me a deposit yet. How do you even know this thing still is for sale? Versus somebody normal who is wanting to sell their item would have been like, yeah, it's still for sale here. I'll give you my phone number or if you send me your phone number, I'll call you.
And I would have done either one of those because I wanted to talk to a person and they didn't want to get on the phone because they were scammers. So, but that's the first thing is go and check their feed, or not their feedback, their actual, click on their picture and it'll give you more of their history of how long they've been on Facebook, if it's within the last couple months, or if it's been a couple years, you'll see some pictures, some posts, and everything like that, that it will show you that they're a legit person.
If they just opened an account, no pictures, no friends, nothing like that, typically it might be a scam. The other thing you can look at is if they post it, like Melissa said, if they posted this in multiple different, towns and cities. Typically it's a scam.
Melissa: They, so how do you, how would you find that out?
Rob: By looking at, once you click on their profile, it'll show you everything that they have listed on marketplace.
Melissa: Oh, so if it's listed in other
Rob: Exactly. If they have the same picture listed in texas and California and Florida then you know that it's totally a scam. Somebody's just trying to get deposits and they're trying to scam people.
So be on the lookout for that as well. The other thing is just communication if they don't make sense when they're communicating, a lot of times I don't worry about getting on the phone with somebody. But for a six hour drive and I let her know it was going to be a six hour drive from where we were over there I think, both sides, if somebody wanted to get on the phone, I would have, as a seller, I would have been comfortable with getting on the phone and telling somebody, hey, I'm here. I'm gonna hold it for you. If you're on your way, I'm gonna hold it for you for that six hours to make sure I don't sell it to anybody else and vice versa.
I would expect somebody else to do the same thing if I had questions to jump on to a phone call with me if I wanted to.
Melissa: Yeah, and, really the thing, don't give deposits. So I could see there are times where, like we were talking to Gina the other day and I think we, we're going to have her, on this podcast soon. So we were talking to her the other day and she said, I, I give deposits.
Like if I really want something, but I can't get there until the next day. And that if you're the one initiating it and you want somebody to hold something and you've had good communication, you feel like they're a legit person. You check out their account. That's a little different. But if somebody is requiring you to give them a deposit, then that is a red flag.
So we never give deposits. Just don't do it. I mean, you don't, you don't need to. So if the, if the item's gone, it's gone. Like it's not, but you don't,
Rob: it's a lot more risky for the buyers than it is for the seller, to take a deposit. So we don't even require deposits. We don't do, I don't even want to mess with any of that stuff.
I want to make sure somebody comes and sees it before they actually give me any money. And I don't even know how to send a deposit through Facebook. It's probably not that hard, but I've never done it. And I don't want.
Melissa: There's a money button.
Rob: Yeah. And I don't want to do it. I want to make sure that somebody likes it.
They inspect it and all that stuff before they actually give me money for it. So.
Melissa: Yeah, so beware of sending deposits on Facebook. I would recommend not doing it.
Rob: And always go with your gut. If you think something's not right, this was a heck of a deal. I know. Every other range that was out there, which we always get things for dirt cheap, I actually found something else.
So we paid $350 for it. We'll be able to get between $3,000-$4,000 for that one. Maybe we'll talk about that on another episode. But, we did find something else. So it wasn't a lost trip. Paid for our trip. When we, when we sell this, still got a great deal on what we did. But we didn't end up getting this range and if it's a spectacular deal and everything else is selling for a lot more money, and then you start seeing some other things that line up that it could be a scam, just put two and two together and try to do all the research and figure out if it really is a scam. Or if it's a legit item.
Melissa: Yeah, let us know if you have dealt with some of these and any other tips that you have. Let us know on social or wherever you hear this. Yeah, we'd love to hear from you and thanks guys for hanging out with us.
Rob: Awesome. You guys rock. We cannot wait to see you on the next episode.