That Marketplace Buyer Is A Scam — How To Tell

You list something for sale on Facebook Marketplace — a couch, a phone, a piece of furniture — and a buyer messages fast, agrees to your price, and wants to pay right away through a payment app. So far, so normal. Then the twist arrives: a payment email saying your money is pending until you pay a fee to upgrade to a business account, or a payment for far more than your price with a request to refund the difference, or a request to read back a verification code sent to your phone. The Federal Trade Commission warns that scammers posing as buyers use exactly these tricks on Marketplace, Craigslist, and other selling sites — fake payment notices, fake check overpayments, and fake verification codes.

What Arrives

It starts in Messenger and moves quickly. The “buyer” may say they cannot pick up in person, that a family member or mover will collect the item, or that they have already paid. You then get a screenshot or an email that looks like it came from a payment service, saying the money is on its way, is pending, or could not be received because your account is not a business account.

The FTC explains the pattern: the scammer sends a fake payment notification and hopes you send the item before you realise it is a scam. In the overpayment version, a check or payment for more than the selling price arrives, and you are asked to send the difference back — the original payment is fake, and it can take weeks for a bank to discover a bad check, long after your money and item are gone. In the code version, the “buyer” says they want to verify you are real and asks you to share a verification code sent to your phone — that code can be used to create a phone number linked to yours and scam other people in your name.

The 5 Red Flags

1. The payment proof is a screenshot or an email — not money in your account. A picture of a payment is not a payment. If the money is not showing in your own payment app or bank account, opened by you, you have not been paid.
2. You must pay a fee to receive your money. A message saying you need to upgrade to a business account, pay a release fee, or send money first to unlock a pending payment is the scam itself. Real payment services do not make a seller pay to receive a sale.
3. They overpaid — on purpose, they say by accident. A check or payment for more than your price, plus a polite request to refund the extra, is a classic FTC-documented trick. The first payment bounces; the refund you sent does not come back.
4. They ask for a verification code sent to your phone. No honest buyer needs a code from your phone to buy a couch. Sharing it can let a scammer set up a number linked to yours and hide behind your identity.
5. Everything is rushed and moved off the normal path. Urgency to ship before payment clears, a mover collecting instead of a normal pickup, or pressure to move to email or text and settle outside the usual checkout — each step removes a protection you would otherwise have.

What Real Buyers And Payment Services Actually Do

Here is the calm truth. A real buyer’s payment shows up in your actual account — you do not need an email to tell you it is there, and you never need to pay a fee, upgrade an account, or refund an “extra” amount to receive it. A real check that is good does not become a problem weeks later. And no legitimate buyer, payment app, or bank asks a seller to read back a phone verification code to complete a sale. If a message tells you a payment rule that sounds new, check it inside the real app or on the service’s official site that you found yourself — never through a link, email, or phone number the buyer sent you.

What To Do Instead

• Check the money yourself, in your own app. Open your payment app or bank account directly. No screenshot, email, or buyer claim replaces what your own balance says.
• Do not ship or hand over the item until payment is truly there. “Pending,” “on hold until you ship,” and “pay the upgrade fee first” all mean the same thing: not paid.
• Never refund an overpayment. If extra money supposedly arrives, stop, keep the item, and let the payment service or your bank sort it out — do not send any part of it back.
• Never share a verification code. A code sent to your phone is for you only, no matter how reasonable the buyer’s story sounds.
• Keep the chat in Marketplace and report it. Use the listing’s report option, block the buyer, and report the scam to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Keep screenshots of the messages and the fake email.

Already Shipped, Refunded, Or Shared A Code? Do This Next

First, take a breath. These scripts are built to look like normal selling — polished payment emails, friendly buyers, plausible fees. Selling something and trusting what looked like proof of payment is completely understandable. What matters now is acting in the right order, quickly and calmly:

1. Call your bank first. If you sent a refund, paid a fee, or deposited a suspicious check, call your bank right away using the number on the back of your card. Say it was a Marketplace payment scam, ask what can still be reversed or stopped, and have the account secured. Contact the payment app through its official app too. If you have not shipped yet, do not ship; if you just shipped, contact the carrier immediately to ask about stopping delivery. Keep copies of the chat, listing, emails, and receipts.
2. Change your passwords. From a clean device you trust, change your email, Facebook, and banking passwords first, then any reused passwords, and turn on two-step verification. If you shared a verification code, follow your phone or account provider’s recovery steps to reclaim your number, and watch for accounts opened in your name.
3. Get your device checked. If you tapped a link from the buyer, installed anything, or shared your screen, have your phone or computer checked before you use it for banking again, to make sure nothing was left behind.

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