Deerfield-News. com-Deerfield Beach, Fl- Are you one of the billions of users of Facebook? If that is a yes then you probably have noticed some of the issues we are going to write about here.
Facebook is plagued with scams and scammers. Most of these fake posts and posters appear in Facebook Groups and Facebook Marketplace. First, we will address the Facebook Group issues.
Facebook Group scams and scammers are usually fake or stolen profiles. Some claim to be car detailers, some claim to clean air conditioning ducts some claim to do marble flooring, and more. Some go on to tell you they are a struggling small business and offer discounted special prices.
Some want to sell a PS5 that was their dead husband or some other hot selling item belonging to their dead relative because they can not stand looking at it as it reminds them of their dearly departed and makes them sad.
I saw a cousin of mine posting on a Facebook group who was in the marble flooring business, the problem was he was not he was an Auto Parts guy who sold his business and is retired. I contacted my cousin in Stuart and asked him when and why he was doing marble flooring he had no idea what I was talking about. I sent him a screen shot of the post from Facebook. That is when it hit me his account had been hacked and taken over by the alleged marble floor guy. This went on for several weeks where the scammer was posting to many South Florida buy and sell and flea market types of groups using my cousin’s profile. Took my cousin a bit to get his restored and account back to him.
Another Facebook Group issue is posters from Bangladesh seeking workers for Walmart or Amazon who can work from home and make mons usually way more than that real job would pay. There are also scammers offering fake coupons for legitimate businesses when it seems too good to be true it is usually a scam.
Facebook Marketplace is plagued by another type of scam and scammers. Generally, they will ask if your item is still available for sale, and if they want to buy it call them or text them at a number they send you in messenger. The “tell” is they generally contact you about 2 to 5 minutes after you cross-post the item you are selling to a group, which for me are used tires. The flea market and local for-sale groups are inundated with these scammers. For online sellers like me, it is a pain in the As$, but there is not much that can be done. Only blocking that user and muting theism is the short-term solution.
I highly recommend not ever texting or calling these scammers as they are up to no good and may steal your cell phone number hack your Facebook account or worse.
Now Facebook is not stupid they know they have a problem the question is why are they not fixing it? EBay and OfferUp have had similar types of issues. I understand Facebook has many more users than eBay and Offerup combined, but that said the other two have addressed the issue and it is pretty much resolved.
About two weeks ago I noticed a new feature in Facebook in the Group membership request area. Facebook has identified potential scammers and those who have been banned from other Facebook groups. That feature quickly disappeared,not sure why.
