How To Stop Scammers On Facebook Marketplace?

19 July 2023

Scammers are everywhere online these days, and it’s important to be aware of the different types of scams that you might encounter when buying and selling items on the Facebook marketplace.

Staying informed about potential scams that might be targeted toward you will help you protect your items, your personal information, and your money.

Our article gives you information on common Facebook marketplace scams and how to stop scammers on the Facebook marketplace.

What Is Facebook Marketplace?

Facebook marketplace is one of today’s most popular selling platforms for both used and new goods. Facebook users can easily navigate the marketplace to find items in their area and items that are available for shipping. It doesn’t charge any kind of fee for this service, which is part of what makes the platform so popular.

Common Facebook Marketplace Scams

As with any type of selling platform, scams are common on the Facebook marketplace. We give you an overview of the most common Facebook marketplace scams you might encounter.

1. Overpayment Scams

Overpayment scams are common both on and off the Facebook marketplace, and these scams involve the buyer claiming to have overpaid for the item by accident. They may try to show proof by providing some kind of receipt or screenshot of payment.

The buyer will then ask that you refund the difference, but once you do this, their original payment will be shown to be false or otherwise not processed. The buyer will then disappear, making off with the money that you sent them as a ‘refund.’

2. False Payment Scams

False payment scams involve the buyer sending you a payment receipt in order to get you to send a package or deliver an item.

These are often screenshots of false payments or utilize suspicious third-party apps. So, it’s important to always use a trusted payment app such as PayPal or Venmo and verify that payment is actually received before you take the next steps in the selling process.

3. Shipping Scams

Shipping scams are very common on most buying and selling platforms, and the Facebook marketplace is no exception. In these scams, a buyer may request that you go ahead and send a package before payment is received.

Alternatively, they may present you with a false payment receipt so that you will send the package. Buyers may also claim that a package was never received, and sellers on the Facebook marketplace may simply take your money and never ship your package.

These scams can be hard to catch at first, so always use common sense and scrutiny when dealing with shipping and receiving packages.

4. Bait and Switch Scams

Bait and switch scams involve the scammer listing a more valuable or popular item on the marketplace, but when you message them about that item, they tell you it has been sold. They may then offer you an item of inferior quality in the hopes that you settle for it and buy it.

5. False Listings

Fake listings, such as listings for apartments or other rentals, and listings that appear too good to be true for valuable items are often the cornerstone of this scam.

In these scams, you may be asked to fill out forms to obtain items or a rental, asked to put down a deposit, or asked to pay a holding fee, only for the rental or item listing to disappear. Then, the scammer vanishes with your money and information.

Tips for Stopping Facebook Marketplace Scammers

The following tips will help stop you from falling for scams when utilizing the Facebook marketplace. Always use caution and common sense when buying or selling online.

Make sure payments are fully received and processed before shipping any product; this stops you from losing the item if a payment turns out to be false.
Never engage with anyone who wants to send payments through sketchy third-party apps and always double-check who owns email addresses.
Always double-check electronics to make sure they are working and be wary of items that appear like they have been stolen.
If the price of something or a product is too good to be true, it likely is.
Never reveal codes that are texted to your phone, and never fill out any kind of form asking for your personal information in order to receive an item.
Always ask for tracking codes or provide tracking codes when shipping and receiving items to prevent false claims of lost packages and to ensure items are actually shipped.

To stop a Facebook marketplace scam for good, open the listing you believe is a scam. Tap on the three dots to open the menu, then navigate to the option that says ‘report listing.’ Tap or click on this, and Facebook will handle the scam listing.

You can also complete this method with the buyer by navigating to the messages exchanged with the buyer. Then, open the same menu by tapping or clicking on the three dots, and select ‘report buyer.’

Making Your Marketplace Experience Safe

Facebook marketplace is a powerful tool to help you buy and sell personal goods to locals in your area, or ship products to those farther away. However, the Facebook marketplace does have its share of scams, and it’s important to be wary as you utilize the platform. Keep your wits about you and remember our tips for stopping Facebook marketplace scammers in their tracks.

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Arnab

Arnab is a professional blogger, having an enormous interest in writing blogs and other jones of calligraphies. In terms of his professional commitments, He carries out sharing sentient blogs.

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Staying Safe in the Office: 8 Workplace Safety Tips Everyone Should Know

Workplace accidents don't only happen on construction sites and in warehouses. The office environment poses risks to health and safety, too. Although most office hazards don't result in death, they do cause injury and sickness. In this article, we take help from one of America’s leading work injury lawyers, Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard. We ask them to list down some constructive steps which can help businesses not be at the receiving end of workplace injury lawsuits. If you are a business organization that is concerned about your workplace safety requirements, please read on to get a fair idea of the topic. Are you safe in your workplace? Do you know which hazards to look out for? It's your employer's responsibility to make the workplace safe, and yours to maintain it. It's important to know how to protect yourself from potential hazards. Keep reading for the eight most important workplace safety tips. 1. Ergonomic Desk Setups: The most common office injury is muscle strain from a poor desk setup. When the body stays in uncomfortable positions too long, it causes strain. Muscle strain can create short and long-term pain. You can prevent this situation by making sure your desk is set up ergonomically. First, make sure the height of your computer monitor is at eye level. Your chair should allow you to sit with a straight posture, your elbows at desk height. When you type on the keyboard, your forearms should sit gently on the desk. They shouldn't be straining to reach the keyboard. Second, make sure your office chair is on wheels. Reaching for objects and twisting to grab them cause back strain. Use the wheels to move closer to whatever you're grabbing. If you use the phone a lot at work, invest in a headset. This prevents neck pain from leaning into the phone. Your employer should supply any ergonomic materials. 2. Make Emergency Exits Clear and Known: It's crucial that everyone in the office know where the emergency exits are. In the case of a fire, you can't take the elevator. You must be able to take the stairs. Not only does mean you need proper signage, but you need clear pathways. Many offices are guilty of having filing boxes sit in the hallway for weeks. Someone will put them away eventually, right? If these boxes get left in front of an emergency exit, they could prevent a speedy exit. This is only one of the reasons to have a clean and clutter-free office. 3. Prevent Slips and Falls: Boxes left on the ground are also serious tripping hazards. You might turn a corner expecting it to be clear, only to knock your shin on a stack of boxes. If you don't trip and fall this time, someone else will. Make it a rule to always keep pathways clear of clutter. If someone takes a box from its storage spot, they must put it back. Slips are another common office safety concern. The breakroom is where people fill their water bottles and prepare lunch. Spilt liquids are hazards for slipping and falling. Your office needs to have "wet floor" signs so employees can signify a spill right away. Until the janitor gets there, people will know to use caution near the spill. 4. Proper Storage: Improper storage of boxes can cause muscle strains and injuries. The basic rule is to keep heavier items on the bottom shelf, lighter on the higher ones. If a box were to fall from the top shelf, you don't want it to be the heavy one. Every bookshelf should have a step ladder near it. Reaching upwards to lift a box is dangerous for your back muscles. Instead, use the handy ladder to bring down whatever you need. When it comes to filing cabinets, it's crucial all the drawers aren't opened at the same time. This can cause the cabinet to fall over and land on you. Open one drawer at a time and make sure it's closed when you're done. 5. Inspect Electrical Cords: Fire hazards exist in office workplaces, too. Since so much of the office equipment relies on electricity, there are tons of cords and wires. Cords and wires that have tears or rips are risks for starting a fire. Some offices use extension cords as a regular office tool. These, too, are serious fire hazards. Check the state of your office’s cords regularly. Don’t get used to using extension cords. Instead, have an electrician from Barwon Heads to re-position the outlets. 6. Use Hazardous Tools Correctly: Even the office has hazardous tools that need instruction. All employees should get training on the various office tools and equipment. For example, large paper cutters are common for workplaces that work with paper. Without proper training, these tools can cut off a finger or seriously slice you. Any automatic office equipment requires caution. Keep your hair, jewelry, and sleeves away from any openings. 7. Be Aware of Surroundings: Many workplace incidents occur when the employee isn't aware of their surroundings. You may walk around reading text on your phone or looking at the ground. While you'll see clutter on the ground, you won't see hazards at eye level. When people don't close the top drawer of a filing unit, someone could walk into it. If you bump into a ladder, the person using it could fall. It's everyone's responsibility to be aware of their surroundings. Encourage all employees to slow down; it's better to be safe than fast. 8. Choose a Health and Safety Officer: Staying on top of all the different health and safety aspects is tedious. You may not have time to check cords, signs, and declutter every day. As a solution, elect one employee to be a health and safety hazard. Give them the task of doing a weekly or bi-weekly check of the office. They can have a report to fill out. Any hazards that need fixing can be on the report. Bonus pay could be the incentive for an employee to take this role. Even the employees who aren't appointed officers should take safety training. Click here to find out why safety skills are important in the office. Want More Workplace Safety Tips? The safety of all employees depends on health and safety procedures. If you keep the workplace clean, organized, and up to date, there will be fewer risks of incidents. Use the workplace safety tips above to make your office a safer place to work. There are tons of other ways to improve your workplace. Stay up to date on business news and trends to improve your office. Happy employees do productive work which thus boosts sales. Read Also: How To Improve Workplace Security The Top Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Security Guard

Why You Need A Secure Wifi Connection In Shared Space

Coworking has completely changed how many entrepreneurs, startups, and established businesses alike approach their work. The coworking space can provide businesses with many benefits such as the opportunity to grow your professional network, surround yourself with positive and so on. Even you can grow the like-minded people, and use state-of-the-art technology. Apart from all coworking benefits, there are also similarly considerable dangers of it as well. Hence, a workplace must have to look for absolute security e.g having a solid and secure wifi connection. What’s more, operating your business from a coworking space will help you to lower your business costs. This would leave you with more capital at your disposal to reinvest in the important areas of your business. With many businesses increasingly moving different aspects of their operations into the online realm, internet security is becoming more of an issue. Actually, this issue occurs with good reason. When you are working with a shared connection, you need to be aware of the dangers of unsecured wifi in coworking spaces, so that you can ensure that your data is always protected. A secure internet connection is crucial for your business in this day and age. When you are choosing a coworking space provider, it’s vital that you inquire as to what kind of security they have in place. Premium providers are always the best option as they will have invested money in the best connections, technology, and security. Let’s take a closer look at just a few reasons that you need a secure wifi connection when you are working from a shared space. i. Data Risks: Coworking spaces can have a lot of people coming and going throughout the working day. In a shared space, you will certainly have the opportunity to get to know people and interact with your new coworking colleagues. However, you won’t know everyone and certainly not well enough that you know that you can trust them or not. If not managed properly, this situation can create opportunities for cybercriminals who might try and infiltrate the network to gain access to your information. Coworking spaces are attractive locations for hackers to try and gain access to information being transferred over public networks. This means that may have the opportunity to access usernames, passwords, and browser history. For this reason, it’s crucial that you choose a coworking space from a premium provider who has the right systems in place to keep your data secure. ii. Increased Productivity: With a high-speed secure wifi connection, you can get more work done faster. There’s nothing worse than battling with slow internet speeds and trying to get your work completed when downloads are taking forever. Moreover, if pages won’t load and your emails won’t send. With more businesses utilizing online tools and cloud-based services( as per its enormous benefits), reliable internet is crucial for you to be productive in your day-to-day tasks. Whether you are managing your books using online accounting software, you are a graphic designer using online editing tools or you are simply trying to use the applications in your Google Drive, having a sub-par internet connection will slow you down and have a huge impact on your productivity levels. iii. Communication Is Key: Communication is key to running a successful business. Whether you are managing a remote team or communicating with your clients, having a communication system in place that you can rely on is vital. It happens for the ongoing success of your business. From using simple apps like Whatsapp to communicate with your team to seeking potential clients over Skype, businesses are increasingly reliant on technology and a solid secure wifi connection. In this way you can stay in touch with the people that matter to their business. If you have a connection that is insecure, unreliable, or just patchy, you could end up missing out on closing important contracts and your bottom line could suffer as a result. iv. A Secure Wifi Connection Is Critical: In the modern business world, we are all more reliant on technology than ever before. Nowadays, virtually every business process requires a secure wifi connection. Furthermore, it’s critical that the connection is not just reliable but secure as well. In a shared space, this is even more important as with more people using the space, your data is potentially at a higher risk. It happens of being hacked or stolen. Using a premium coworking provide that has the best technology in place will help you to overcome these challenges. Even you can work with the confidence that your data is secure and protected. To be very honest, modern technology has provided both the advanced security system and advanced breach opportunities as well. The more advancements in technology will be implemented, the more both businesses will be harnessed. Well, keeping breach tactics so far, we have shared a blog on using an amazing technology, Called Captive Portal, a weapon to prevent unwanted wifi users and maintains a secure wifi connection. Check out immediately. Read Also: How To Stay Safe When Making Mobile Payments 5 Easy Ways Of Improving Internet Access With Speed Tests

4 Ways To Address Privacy Concerns Around Customer Data

A single data breach can expose tens of millions of customers to spam, scams, identity theft, fraud, and more. It’s also a quick, easy way to destroy your brand reputation and lose a massive chunk of your customer base. In the worst-case scenario, you could end up paying millions of dollars in fines. If serious enough, your team members or executives could even face some jail time. But customer data still needs to be kept safe and private, even when the risks are far less grand in scale. Simply leaking your customers’ email addresses and exposing them to junk mail can erode their trust in you. To protect your customers and assuage any customer concerns, always handle their data with care. Here are a few important ways to protect data, limit the risks, and put your customers at ease. 1. Use Zero Party Data Perhaps the best way to put customers at ease about their data is to give them more control over what you know. Letting them decide what they share with you — and don’t — can protect their privacy and boost your brand reputation. Giving customers a chance to consent or opt out of sharing first-party data when they visit your site or app is a nice touch. But if you really want to put your customers in the data driver's seat, zero party data is the way to go. With zero-party data, your customers and prospects respond to surveys, polls, questionnaires, and more. These inputs can be used to personalize their experience, or anonymized and aggregated to help your brand make data-driven decisions. Either way, when customers provide this data, they usually expect some kind of user benefit. A personalized product recommendation, useful content, or a customized landing page are all ways to deliver that small reward. 2. Be Transparent Ideally, you should tell all of your customers exactly what you collect, what you use it for, and why. As long as you’re not up to anything nefarious (you aren’t, right?) transparency should be as simple as a brief pop-up disclaimer. In fact, transparency could help improve your credibility and customer trust in your brand. And that trust can in turn have a direct impact on your business growth and performance. It’s particularly important not to collect any extra bits of customer data you don’t need and they haven’t agreed to share. Gathering and storing extraneous data heightens the risk to your customers if there’s a breach. In some countries, regions, or industries, it could even be illegal. Besides all this, it can take up unnecessary room on servers, cloud storage, etc. To be on the safe side, always get permission from customers before collecting any kind of data. 3. Anonymize and Encrypt Some of the worst data breaches on record have also turned out to be some of the most ridiculous. Companies have accidentally leaked massive spreadsheets with customer names, addresses, passwords, and credit card data all linked together. But even anonymizing data doesn’t necessarily give customers any real protection or privacy. It’s all too easy to put two-and-two together and figure out someone’s identity. To ensure that data is truly safe, your company should always use the latest encryption methods and data protection protocols. Consult with experts about the best practices, software programs, and other tools to suit your company’s needs. Data security is not the place to cut corners, so be willing to dedicate a significant portion of your budget to protecting customers. Otherwise, you risk putting them in danger of identity theft, financial loss, reputational damage, and more. 4. Train Employees and Vet Vendors Customer data should be kept strictly confidential and only shared with employees and vendors on a need-to-know basis. Your employees need to understand how crucial it is to protect sensitive data and how exactly they need to do it. Before handling potentially sensitive data, employees should undergo appropriate screenings and training. Train them not to share details like passwords or door codes, and limit access to sensitive cabinets, rooms, or computers. Third-party vendors and contractors can be a potential cause of concern for data privacy. That’s why it’s important to carefully vet them, just as you would employees. The more you share data, the higher the risk of a breach or exposure along the way. If a vendor has access to your data, and its systems are compromised, your data could be leaked. Or, bad actors at the company you shared with could use the data in unsafe or inappropriate ways. Worst-Case Scenarios In the event that a data leak or cybersecurity event does occur, your company should have an emergency plan in place. Know what you’ll do in the event of a breach — how you’ll stop it from progressing and contain the damage. The plan should clearly indicate roles and responsibilities and include considerations for various scenarios. Many companies, universities, and government agencies have their plans publicly available online, as a resource. Whatever you do, never attempt to conceal a data breach from the media, your customers, or the public. You could end up facing fines, lawsuits, sanctions, jail time, and irrevocably brand-damaging press. Instead, own up to the breach immediately and let your customers know how you plan to handle it. In order to earn back their trust, you’ll have to prove you know how to do the right thing. Read Also: Data Security In The Cloud: Strategies For A Safe Migration Process Mining and Data Privacy – Key Points to Remember 5 Ways To Prevent Cyber Attacks

How To Stop Scammers On Facebook Marketplace?

What Is Facebook Marketplace?