How to be safe when buying and selling on Facebook Marketplace (2024)

FAQs

How to be safe when buying and selling on Facebook Marketplace? ›

To help protect your safety, do not share personal information – like your email or phone number – with people you do not know. Instead, communicate through Messenger about potential Marketplace transactions. It's important to know how to recognize scams and spot the red flags to help you shop securely online.

To help protect your safety, do not share personal information – like your email or phone number – with people you do not know. Instead, communicate through Messenger about potential Marketplace transactions. It's important to know how to recognize scams and spot the red flags to help you shop securely online.

As for payment, carrying cash, especially a lot of cash, is risky. Facebook Marketplace recommends a secure person-to-person payment method such as PayPal.

Key red flags to watch out for:

Suspiciously low prices. Pressure to act quickly. Requests for non-secure payment methods. Vague or inconsistent descriptions.

Suspicious profiles: Thoroughly read the buyer's profile before going through with a deal. You should be able to view their ratings and reviews, other listings, and Marketplace activity. If the user is not local to the area or has an empty profile, that may be a warning sign that they are not who they say they are.

Should I give someone my address on Facebook Marketplace? If you're buying something that needs to be shipped, you can't avoid giving someone your address on Facebook Marketplace. But if you're buying or selling locally, you should ask the other person to meet you in a safe public place.

How to trust buyers on Facebook Marketplace? ›

Check out the seller's profile. Checking the seller's profile will help you determine whether the seller is legitimate or a possible scam artist. Keep in mind that a legitimate seller may have a lot of information that is restricted to friends only, but you might not get a lot of information from their public profile.

If a listing price seems too good to be true, it may be a scam. Get to know the person you're buying from by visiting their Marketplace profile. You can see their profile picture, any ratings they've received from other buyers and sellers, and how long they've been on Facebook.

Purchase Protection means that you can request a refund if: You didn't receive your order. The product arrived damaged or different than described on the listing (example: the condition isn't accurate). The seller didn't follow their stated refund policy.

"If a seller has multiple listings of the same piece, no profile picture, or they're a new account without ratings, those are immediate red flags." It's important to remember that a person's seller page is linked to their personal Facebook profile, which should theoretically showcase their lives over many years.

If the buyer cannot show the item delivered does not match the listing, Meta will protect the seller against the claim. Meta protects sellers from buyers who return products they have used, damaged, or substituted for a different product, and cases where the return was never delivered.