It started at church this morning. Richard got a notification on his phone that someone was at our front door. We wondered about it but it wasn’t until later when we replayed the footage and heard part of a conversation that we realized someone had given our address in an ad for a TV on Facebook Marketplace.
One guy came to the door, left and returned in about an hour. He was joined by a second guy. Turns out that the first guy had paid $250 as a deposit on a TV. They decided, when they realized we weren’t home, that it was probably a scam and they left. Someone was out $250. I think there was one other visitor to our door before we got home.
At lunch time a young guy with an English accent also came about a TV for sale. Luckily he hadn’t transferred any money. We thought he would probably be the last person because people who wanted the phantom TV would have been on it early in the day. A few moments ago, when we were out filling the bird feeder, three guys pulled up in a truck also wanting to buy the TV. They had come from Marlborough across the city. We encouraged them to go to the police and to contact their bank because, they too, had paid a deposit. From this latest group we learned that the scammers used the photo of an older woman in the ad. One of the guys told us he had cautioned his friend to be wary but when they saw the photo of the woman they thought that the ad must be legit.
All of the people we chatted with were really nice and apologized for bothering us. I know many people use Facebook Marketplace all the time and have had no trouble. I’m angry with whoever hatched this scam, not because having people show up at the door was particularly bothersome, but because the scammer at the least, had people driving all over they city wasting their time. At worst, people were out hard-earned money.
We all know that there are scammers out there and we do our best not to be tricked. I guess I’m very fortunate in that I don’t come across something like this very often. I have been scammed once and came close to being scammed a second time. I feel for the folks whose day became much less than they expected because of this scammer. I hope the remainder of their day went better and that they are able to somehow recoup their money. I also admit to hoping that this scam comes back to bite the scammer in the butt!
