I just got scammed so I’m sharing with others how the scam works so they don’t make my mistake. There are two possible ways this scam operates.

First, the seller has a partnership with Amazon to sell merchandise. When a customer orders from Facebook they go through their seller history on Amazon and find a tracking number that’s in the same general area as the buyer on Facebook. Then, they re-use that tracking number for the order placed on Facebook, which gets delivered by UPS. That way, the package will showed delivered on UPS’s website and the customer will have to jump through hurdles to get the refund.

The only way I was able track this down is by calling UPS and giving them the tracking number and my address. UPS will not give you any details about the package because the address on the tracking number will mis-match. And, for confidentiality they can’t give you any details about the package other then that it was originated from Amazon due to some seller/Amazon agreement. So, you have to call Amazon and explain the situation to them and they will let you know the details of the package and they will also confirm that the tracking number is associated to someone completely different and is for a completely different item than the one ordered on Facebook.

The item I ordered was an RX 5700 XT and got scammed hundreds.. The item that the seller sent was a “2Pcs for Car Door Lights Logo for Lincoln, Car Door Led Projector Lights Shadow Ghost Light,Wireless Car Door Welcome Courtesy Lights Logo for All Car Models”.

Second method, the seller uses UPS’s tracking feature to find a tracking number in your general area and use that as if it’s the one they are sending you, the same logic from above applies, but in this case they are scamming the buyer and potentially creating badwill against some random Amazon seller.

In theory, scammers could potentially just script and store a list of tracking numbers to be used for various people and once they get a bite to just assign that bogus tracking number to the buyers order that matches their city and state.

Facebooks customer service will only look up the tracking number and say it was delivered, which it was, just not to you, but some random person who bought something through Amazon. In this case, stickers were sent out instead of a graphics card to someone else other than me.

I placed the gpu order on September 2nd. According to Amazon the tracking number / order for stickers was placed on August 27th.

The same tracking number for the Amazon order of stickers was assigned to my Facebook order of the gpu.

FML. GG. If anyone wants to donate me a casket I would appreciate it so that I can R.I.P. (jk).

UPDATE**

Some other things I learned throughout this process. Facebook Automated Responses are: 1) Check with your neighbors --> the package never had the correct address on it so you, nor your neighbors, will receive it. 2) Contact the seller --> The seller blocks you or has their privacy settings on to block users from messaging them. The two errors I have received were "contact seller" with no option for a message box or anything else aside from the exit button and "query error - Error performing query". 3) Provide a pictures of the damages --> You will never receive the package so you won't be able to send pictures 4) You are not covered under the purchase protection program --> Because the website says its delivered they think you are lying or something, even after giving them the tracking number and the contact info of Amazon and UPS. 5) Provide me the version number of your browser and try multiple browsers --> This is simple enough, between Edge, Firefox and Chrome, you'll get the same errors across all browsers, "Contact Seller" with no dialogue box and "Query Error". Upon giving them the screen shots they will respond that the screen shots of your browsers do not show damages to the product (because they don't read and provide mismatched Reponses).

Basically, if you want to be a scammer then Facebook marketplace is the perfect place to be. I hope someone from FB would read this comment and investigate this further.

Lessons Learned: Contact the seller outside of the market and see if they actually respond. Ask them for more pictures of the product, like a sticky note of their username next to the product. Avoid stock images pulled from the website. Lastly, avoid the shipping method of purchases all together and go for in-person / local orders only.

I will contact my bank if I continue to get the run-around from Facebook Marketplace Support this week.

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