I am trying to sell an item on FB Marketplace and so far I have only gotten messages from two men in Sri Lanka? The location is set to my city with the item clearly stating “No Shipping / Pick-Up Only”.
I am curious if somehow they are trying to scam me but I can’t figure out how. One person asked for the location and I offered a public place to meet then didn’t hear back. The other person asked for my contact phone number but when I said I only wanted to communicate via FB Marketplace, he also went quiet. What’s going on?
The fact that both profiles show they are from Sri Lanka and currently living there made me wonder if something is off.
8 comments
Lazy?
Who cares just sell your shit the way you like.
Yeah nobody serious uses fb marketplace here.
The only people that do are those from countries where this service is used, and they sell to their own country-people, in their own language etc, limiting the audience.
In japan,
If you want to sell an item hands off, for bidding, by setting a minimum you want to get rid of it for and forgetting until its sold = use yahoo auctions
If you want to be pestered with dumb questions about your item, requests for price drop, or requests for other silly things = sell on mercari
If you want to get rid of it for free or almost free as quick as possibly = jmty or bring to a local hardoff/2ndstreet/etc
No idea/experience with other stuff.
could be any number of things, selling online is a crapshoot from scammers to crazies. just ignore anyone that acts strange.
Why would you try to sell something on FB Marketplace here? That’s just asking for trouble, Japanese people don’t use it.
There are lots of people in FB marketplace in Japan who are from places like Sri Lanka or Pakistan who never update their FB locations. No idea why.
You can google `common facebook marketplace scams` to see what else might be going on, but most of the payment scams that are used in North America won’t work in Japan.
Apart from that, gaijin on Buy&Sell groups are ridiculously flaky. It’s a nightmare to try to sell stuff there, especially anything that requires a vehicle to pick up. If you speak/read Japanese, selling or giving stuff away on ジモティー is a far better experience.
This sounds like hyperbole but it’s not, selling most of my stuff on Facebook in Japan to move was the most ANNOYING AND STRESSFUL THING I’VE EVER DONE. Jmty is the best place to use. There’s so much bs, scams and fucking ridiculous lowballing on Facebook. Too bad I hadn’t heard of it until after I moved.
FB marketplaces has scams that come a dime a dozen. You are doing the right thing by not giving personal info and opting for a public place. Good luck selling your stuff, but it might be hard. I see lots of washing machines on my prefectures buy & sell page as well as on sayonara sales.
r/Scams