Selling a high ticket item on Facebook Marketplace. Paranoid about scams.

Yeah, I've no idea where they are. The postal address of his "son" for his "birthday" is Coventry (i'm peterborough). I've messaged him back saying its cash on collection or if he wants to pay via BT i'm happy to post. It's clearly a scam. There was urgency which is a red flag, although my messages seem to not being read by him with any urgency (given that he wants it delivered for birthday tomorrow lol)
 
thefunkygibbon said:
Yeah, I've no idea where they are. The postal address of his "son" for his "birthday" is Coventry (i'm peterborough). I've messaged him back saying its cash on collection or if he wants to pay via BT i'm happy to post. It's clearly a scam. There was urgency which is a red flag, although my messages seem to not being read by him with any urgency (given that he wants it delivered for birthday tomorrow lol)
Click to expand...
The urgency is often because the Facebook accounts are compromised too. Check out his profile, does he even have a son at uni age?
 
Just don't do it if you are concerned. The anxiety and potential for being a victim of a scam is not worth it.

Just stick to your guns and keep it cash on collection only. Price it a bit lower than you expect if you want it sold quicker.

Better to have 5-10% less money but without ending up with no money and a horrid time trying to get it back.

Scammers feed on a sellers desperation to sell/get the most amount of money for something.
 
Last edited:
dLockers said:
The urgency is often because the Facebook accounts are compromised too. Check out his profile, does he even have a son at uni age?
Click to expand...
lol its just one picture from september apparently. of 2 peoples back walking away with a "i've been vaccinated' banner around it. nothing else is on the profile to see.
yeah its of course a scam :-)
 
Out of interest, where would be better places to sell stuff. Other than the Ocuk sale forums (which were great when i had access). Guessing Gumtree/FB are interchangable in terms of risk. (prob worse on gumtree, right? as you can't really do any sniffing around their profile to help ascertain their legitimacy).
eBay is just fee's + fee's from the last time i used them.

anything else?
 
Could always do ebay - I sold off most of my ex-mining 570's/580's a few years back (30+ cards) via ebay and didn't have any problems. I was however extremely honest on the listings about what they'd been used for, posted pictures from every possible angle and added a postage charge that meant everything was sent by RMSD as well. More recently last year, I sold on all my ex-chia HDD's (10+ drives) without issue too. Both lots of sales I used an cheap listing promo that meant the fee's were minor.

For all the complaints we hear about ebay, there are a magnitude more sales that go fine without issue.
 
I've had a few bad experiences which I had to chalk up as experience, but otherwise I find that eBay is generally ok for telling tech. That's graphics cards, other computer parts, whole computers and mobile phones.

You could also try your work's intranet notice board.
 
Pawnless Endgame said:
I've had a few bad experiences which I had to chalk up as experience, but otherwise I find that eBay is generally ok for telling tech. That's graphics cards, other computer parts, whole computers and mobile phones.

You could also try your work's intranet notice board.
Click to expand...

yeah, its just the fee's which put me off mostly about ebay.
I don't think my company has such a thing, but even if they did, it wouldnt be much use given that 95% of my colleagues are overseas :-)
 
Megahurtz400 said:
Cash. On. Collection. ONLY.
Click to expand...

100% this.

Anything that starts with "can you ship it to my .............<insert friend/family member/> and I'll paypal you the money...." is a scam.

They even say they will pay extra etc etc - ultimately it's coming from a hacked paypal account, you send item, you think you have the money, paypal then refund the original person who had account hacked and you have no money and no item.

Cash only / collection or drop it off.
 
thefunkygibbon said:
yeah, its just the fee's which put me off mostly about ebay.
I don't think my company has such a thing, but even if they did, it wouldnt be much use given that 95% of my colleagues are overseas :)
Click to expand...

Just do it when they have 80% off final value fees. They have that promotion literally every few weeks.

Makes selling in there far cheaper/more reasonable.
 
thefunkygibbon said:
Hi all,

I'm selling my old graphics card (I don't have access to ocuk selling forums any more since the great wipe 20 years back lol) and I've listed it on fb marketplace. I've never sold such a high ticket item on there before, but a "guy" has messaged me asking to buy it, pay extra for postage and send to his "son at uni".

He wants to pay paypal, which i'd rather not as I advertised as cash/bt on collection (wasn't intending to post).

the paranoid in me is concerned that I could be being scammed somehow as I'm always hearing about some scam or another. I've been massively out of pocket before selling things (amazon marketplace though... never again)

I cannot see anything on the persons profile other than name and a photo.

Can't they just simply claim that I didn't send what I was supposed to, or claim it as faulty or that sort of thing? Obviously the card is 100% working fine and I don't intend to scam them, but I note that the paypal buyers protection seems to be a lot more robust than any protection offered to sellers.


thanks in advance
Click to expand...
It's a shame you don't have MM access, I think you've been here even longer than me.
 
Lopéz said:
It's a shame you don't have MM access, I think you've been here even longer than me.
Click to expand...
hah, yeah i can't rememeber when it was but i'm sure i was buying from OCUK and prevalent on the forums whilst I was at uni... so like 2000 ish, maybe. Good times. I remember having a LAN party in our uni house and inviting a whole bunch of OCUK'ers to it... prob most of which no longer post here (Jaana, WeaverD, Gilly, Matramskil, Pezboy, slipstream... ah those were the days :-))

just had a look through my old emails and saw some of the stuff i used to buy and sell on there.... great times. (although i seemed to have a bit of a penchant for neon lights/cold cathodes back then lol)
 
thefunkygibbon said:
thanks, but my point is, whats the scam? how can you tell? how are you supposed to even sell things online/via paypal if you run the risk of this happening?
whats the best way to sell these days?
Click to expand...
The scam is he pays by paypal.
You send to his son at uni.
He claims for none delivery
You lose because you didnt send to the address on his paypal - you sent to his son at uni.

If you can get him to pay by friends and family maybe consider it but otherwise just say collect only and demo it working.
 
just echoing what everyone else has said...

for FB marketplace/gumtree
if the account was created recently/2022/2023 - it's a scam
if it's a "swap" it's stolen goods - don't do it
never post the item or allow paypal for payment - cash/bank transfer on collection only
before they take the item - count the cash/never rely on their screen saying fund transferred as it could be an altered screenshot - ensure the funds have pinged your account
 
jaybee said:
Marketplace is better for when they come to your house and pay cash. If you are worried they may bring fake cash - can happen but rare - then get them to do bank transfer in front of you. Only then do you hand it over.
Click to expand...

Just a note on this ... Make sure the money lands in your account on your OWN banking app too. Lots of lookalike fake banking apps have been made to look genuine and only when the seller checks later, realises they've bene done.
 
I sold a 4090 recently. Had a few offers on Facebook along those lines. Send it to different address, send it to son, will pick up... actually can you send it etc. All the accounts looked to be from legit but foreign facebook accounts (likely hacked). It being a 4090 its very suspicious someone wanting to purchase it without questions or photos and especially on behalf of someone else. I also got two fake offers from two linked accounts on ebay. Collection only on FB IMO and strong look at the feedback if via ebay sales.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom