Clemente Varas is an investment educator in the real estate sector. Scams are an unfortunate part of society today, and they are seemingly everywhere. In the following article, Clemente Varas discusses how to avoid scams on Facebook Marketplace.
One scroll through Facebook Marketplace and you can see why the e-commerce behemoth functions as something close to the world’s most bizarre online bazaar.
There are free cardboard boxes available, but also a $130,000 2012 Lamborghini Gallardo. There’s a cabinet from Target being resold next to a $450,000 2020 Cessna 172s. There are townhouses for rent, porch swings, vintage dining tables, a $20 sewing machine, and a collection of Dallas Cowboys memorabilia for $150. And all of it is available today for one lucky buyer.
But Facebook Marketplace has its fair share of unlucky buyers, too. Clemente Varas says Facebook Marketplace has an estimated 1 billion monthly visitors. Worldwide, Facebook Marketplace can be accessed at over 200 locations and a single advertisement on the site reaches up to 562 million people, and the United States alone has over 190 million Facebook Marketplace users.
Statistics
Clemente Varas says that fraud has grown on the site since the marketplace launched in 2016. According to one survey, about 270 million Facebook Marketplace accounts could be fake. That’s around 13% to 16% of one account.
And a whopping 1 out of 6 users of Facebook Marketplace says they’ve been scammed at least…
