AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Since the early days of the pandemic, people buying and selling personal items online have surged.
Two of the most popular websites people are using today to sell unneeded items are Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Both sites are safe to use if you know how to spot scams and how to avoid them.
To demonstrate, we listed a DSLR camera that hadn’t been used in years on Facebook Marketplace.
We took a few photos of the camera, added a description, set a price, and hit save. Within a few minutes, we received eight responses from other Facebook users asking if the item was still available.
Before responding to those messages, we decided to check them out first. Six of the messages appeared to be from real people with authentic Facebook profile accounts from my area.
Two of them were clearly faked. One user’s profile contained no photos, no posts, and no friends.
A second suspicious profile only had a picture of a cat as his profile photo and had posted only once, a photo of a lizard playing the guitar. Before responding to every Marketplace message, check the person’s Facebook profile.
You’ll find a link to it in their message where they created a “group”. Even if their Facebook profile has a few pictures and posts, it’s a good idea to take a closer look before doing business with them.
On another item, we received a message from Colleen Reyes, who said she could pick up the item the next day.
Curious, we opened her profile photo in a new tab…
