Rename Facebook MarketPlace to....
 

Scammer Heaven. Cause it's unbelievable the number of scams and crooks are on it.

I've been looking for new sails and thought I found a decent price. I spoke to the guy on the phone and
even got an address where I could go look at them. So I drove to the marina, looked at the sails and
the guy phones me to tell me that he can't be there because of traffic. But if I like the sails I can just
transfer him the money and take the sails.

Only one thing happened while I was on the phone.

The real owner showed up and asked me what I was doing. The criminal that I had on the phone wasn't
even in the country and might not have even visited here. I found out that it's a common scam that's
being pulled. They do it with houses for sale, cars for rent, etc.

Are there any decent places left to buy and sell on the Internet?

Try selling a car.
Here's a good one.

- I want to take a look at your car
- OK
- Tomorrow 3:30 OK?
- Fine
- Does it have american vin verification pass?
- WTF is that?
- Or its like Carfax but cheaper ... gives some bullshit URL where they want you to pay $50 to "verify VIN".
- Fuck off

That's crazy. Were you actually considering transferring him the money?

Well, FB is generally full of scam, not just marketplace. Curse of lack of any verification methods.

For a moment yes, I considered transferring the money to the guy.

In my defense, I was holding the actual sails that were supposed
to be for sale.

That's been a thing for years. Several years ago I sold a car, predominantly using Craigslist at first. Every day I would get several texts trying to get me to purchase that stupid "verification," plus emails.

A real "key" in my situation was not one of those texts would haggle with the price. They might be more natural now with haggling, not sure.

Id consider myself pretty careful and I might have transferred the money aswell.

Forgive my ignorance about sailing, but was this guy just referring to sails already attached to a boat? How did he know where/which sails would be there for taking? What a tricky bastard.

The sails were folded up right on the deck of the boat

The real owner's best guess is that he's active in an online yachting community and the scammer must
have read his posts.

ah I see. That is one of the most convincing scams I've ever heard of, considering the sails were folded up and ready to go exactly where he said.

I'm sure he would have just said on the phone "They should be right there did you try inside the cabin?"
and kept me looking until I said that I found the sails.

Or maybe even tried to get me remove the ones on the mast.

We have a local FB group for selling.... Everyone has to live in town and it's a private group. Anthing you want to get rid of bam put it online and it's gone in 24 hours.

I buy stuff from FB all the time. I bought a electric mower for $25 once. Ten years later I still have it.

"Oh I thought my wife had already folded them and had them ready to go... okay can you do me a favor and just remove them from the mast"

oh boy.

Back then for local buying/selling i used usenet group. Was fun to post something and having a guy in front of my house in half hour picking up goods.