Juliette Jones was pumped about occurring household vacation in a caravan she’d put a deposit on.
However, inside minutes of paying, the vendor disappeared from Facebook Marketplace leaving her and not using a caravan and minus A$548.
Jones says she feels silly now for trusting the vendor, however has since discovered many victims of the rip-off who paid far more than what she did.
A 4 Berth Lunar caravan for $4207 was making rounds on Facebook Marketplace between December 22 and 23 – nevertheless it turned to be a rip-off.
Jones was one of many individuals who put a deposit on the rip-off and mentioned the vendor was “incredibly communicative and responsive”.
“We decided to message the seller to see if it was available. He got back straight away and said it’s available and viewing’s tomorrow at 11am.
“He was extremely communicative and ship me about 15 pictures of this caravan, which I checked up on CARJAM.
The registration and warrant matched an actual caravan, however Jones had no method of figuring out it wasn’t the sellers.
“We did this even though the price was cheap, we validated as much as we could.
“We requested him whether or not we might view it and he replied saying it is offered and the pickup’s pending. I assumed that was fast and requested him to let me know if that falls by means of.”
“Then there have been this backwards and forwards of him saying it is pending and I mentioned we had been comfortable to pay a small deposit to ebook it, and we are able to choose it up within the morning.”
Jones said the seller’s profile seemed genuine – three kids in the cover picture, a picture of a boat and a Facebook member since 2005.
So they made the deposit – within minutes, the profiles went down, and he was gone.
After the incident, Jones got in touch with another person on Facebook who had been in contact with four or five other people who had fallen for the same scam.
“Same caravan, similar particular person and all completely different deposits.
“We were fortunate how much we paid compared to what some others did.
“We received so excited, and while we had been attempting to verify him out, he texted and mentioned “oh look, I have got five other people waiting, I’ll give you five minutes and tell them it’s pending”.
“He hurried us, and we were getting swept up with the excitement of going on our trip in the caravan.”
A single mom from Hawkes Bay informed Stuff she misplaced $2286 deposit on the identical caravan.
Jordan Heersping, CERT NZ supervisor of menace and incident response, says Facebook market is a difficult place as a result of it isn’t effectively regulated exterior the Facebook setting.
“One of the primary things people can look out for are deals that look too good to be true – if you see something that is usually $1000 and is put up for $150, then probably not something that is actually legitimate sale.”
Heersping mentioned whereas relying on the reporting, scammers may get their profiles deactivated, but it surely was not troublesome for somebody actively malicious to create a brand new profile and do the identical factor underneath a special title.
“It is really tricky with names and faces online. It is almost impossible to tell how genuine someone is.
“It is feasible the real profile from 15-20 years in the past was compromised by an individual who’s doing the scamming, so that they handle to get a official particular person’s username and password and use their title and face to hold out the rip-off.”
The difference between legitimate sales and scams were minimal and sometimes don’t eventuate till afterwards, Heersping said.
“We get fairly a couple of reviews of scams and in addition reviews of fb profiles being compromised. There’s loads of exercise on social media and everywhere in the web, however these have an effect on day-to-day individuals.”
A Consumer Protection spokesperson said the Consumer Guarantees Act did not apply to private sales like private sale online and garage sales.
“However, personal patrons who’ve a grievance about their buy could make a declare within the Disputes Tribunal.”
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Fallen victim to a Facebook Marketplace Scam?
1. Stop all contact with the scammer – Once you realise you are being scammed, do not continue the communication and block the scammer from contacting you.
2. Do not make any more payments – Some scammers target people caught in recent scams, e.g, by pretending to be an enforcement agency that can return all your money for a fee. Do not give money to anyone promising they will get your lost money back.
3. Contact the bank or service you sent money through – If you are the victim of a financial scam, credit card scam or identity theft, contact your bank immediately. The sooner your bank knows about it the greater the likelihood of getting the money back.
4. Report the Scam – If you have lost money, you should report the scam to the police and complete the instructions on Facebook so that others do not fall victim to the same scam. You can report scams on Facebook Marketplace.
