After the Christmas holidays, users might be tempted to go to the Facebook Marketplace to resell their gifts (especially in the case of duplicates). However, beware of the many scams that abound on the Meta platform.
In this period of inflation, more and more French people want resell their Christmas presents (especially in the case of duplicates, or to simply round up the ends of the month). As explained by Louise Benzrihem, project manager for eBay France to AFP, Barbie dolls, for example, are among the most resold products after the holidays in 2023. Nothing surprising when we know the success of the film with Margot Robbie at the international box office.
High-tech accessories, such as connected watches or even wireless headphones, not forgetting the winners of the end-of-year literary prizes (Renaudot and Goncourt), are regularly found in duplicate at the foot of the tree as well. Result, Many users go to peer-to-peer resale platformslike eBay, Leboncoin or Facebook Marketplace for sell off their unwanted gifts.
Beware of scams on Facebook Marketplace
However, as our colleagues at Wired explain, it will be necessary to demonstrate extreme vigilance on these sites before validating any transaction. Blame it on the proliferation of scams, particularly on Facebook Marketplace. Indeed, scams are legion on the Meta platform and sometimes turn sordid.
First, there are these fake ads for expensive products, which ask for prepaid debit cards (for purported use on Amazon and eBay) as deposits before suddenly disappearing. Phishing attempts are also widespread on the platform and affect both buyers and sellers. Indeed, scammers regularly pose as potential customers, with the aim of extracting certain personal or banking information (via false links to payment solutions like Zelle or PayPal for example).
Also read: Facebook MarketPlace – he posts an ad to sell 56 pairs of Airpods, the transaction goes wrong
According to a survey carried out in 2022 among 1000 British users, one in six respondents have already been the victim of a scam on Facebook Marketplace. And if we are to believe the BBB (Better Business Bureau) online scam tracking system, there were more than 1,200 reports regarding Facebook Marketplace between January 2022 and November 2023.
According to Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels, the American giant is doing everything possible to combat this scourge : “What happens offline often ends up in online environments, and that unfortunately includes scams. Meta works aggressively to quickly identify, disable and ban scams and the accounts associated with them,” he assures. In the coming months, the firm also plans to launch a new notification system for “help people better identify potential scams around payment apps.”