Gatineau, Que. Facebook Marketplace sellers using fake addresses to scam buyers
CTV
Residents of a Gatineau, Que. neighbourhood have been dealing with a string of strangers knocking at the doors of their homes looking to pick up their purchased products from Facebook Marketplace, but instead discovering they had been scammed.
Residents of a Gatineau, Que. neighbourhood have been dealing with a string of strangers knocking at the doors of their homes looking to pick up their purchased products from Facebook Marketplace, but instead discovering they had been scammed.
For days now, Allan Barnes and some of his neighbours have had to break the troubling news to the steady stream of people coming to their homes to pick up their online purchases, all of them victims of fraud.
“This has happened 15 or 20 times now and it's still happening," said Barnes, a Pointe Gatineau resident.
“They’re looking for mixers, they’re looking for baseball caps, all kinds of items generic household items. One person showed up this morning for a baby-swing and my wife felt so horrible she almost offered her money just to try and take some of the feeling away," he said.
"It’s an awful feeling for these people.”
Barnes was told by the unsuspecting victims that the Marketplace seller would provide curbside pick-up and required payment upfront in the form of an e-transfer.
Once the payment was received, the seller would give them a fake but very real address.
