How we were scammed on Facebook Marketplace

This is how we were scammed on Facebook Marketplace using GLS Delivery. Thankfully, we lose no money but sharing this in case you want to check if a buyer is legit to avoid Facebook marketplace scams. The scammers use lots of messages on your Facebook Marketplace listing to scam you in to thinking using GLS to deliver an envelope of money is a good idea. At no stage did we think using GLS (It's not GLS, as you'll see) was a good idea.

How we're scammed on Facebook Marketplace: DON'T DO THIS!



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

this mail is impossible to cancel oh I've had mails like that before you know the ones that are impossible to cancel hello welcome back to the Happy Hut we got scammed on Facebook Marketplace of all places

what a surprise uh I'm going to go through the specifics of this scam and you might not be in the same country as me and you might not even be on Facebook but there are things in this scam that are so obvious looking back and I'm sharing this because In the Heat of the Moment when you're caught up in it... every step of this scam seems sort of reasonable

and it's only when you step back for a moment you think hang on a minute nothing about this adds up!

the new thing I'm trying to make your family happy is to not get scammed on Facebook

my son was doing uh a massive favour for his friend

he was selling this electric scooter 

it's a really nice one

it's a a Mi electric scooter 

he's a young teenager and I'm as surprised as you are to find a teenager that actually uses Facebook... but anyway he... he put on this listing and he was contacted by a scumbag and it's okay... we've got a really happy ending coming up

but let me talk you through the correspondence so the marketplace listing's for a xiaomi Pro 2 e scooter 

my son got this message

is this item still available 

and they ask again I think and he dived in about half an hour later 

yes it is 

my son is a man of few words I really like that about him 

okay the price suits me okay I take it but I would like to come tomorrow but I am busy with work at the moment

yeah she looks like someone who who would be 

I'll send a GLS letter carrier to your home to give you your money in cash and collect the item 

well that seems unusual but it I could believe that that in a universe somewhere that there would be a courier service that would uh you know pay cash on on collection I'd buy that I think uh 

and this is when my son was explaining it to me he said 

yeah The Courier is going to bring an envelope with the cash in so at least we see the cash and and clearly um we should have asked questions at this point 

so they dive in with their the next page of their script 

I explain: a GLS agent will come to your home to give you an envelope containing your money and once you have verified your money you will give him the object to send it to me 

now I... I am no snob when it comes to English and my goodness if someone can Master English as a second language that's great but there's there is some some phrasing in here that again starts to ring alarm bells or at least starts to wave a little red flag 

okay no worries but what time are you available today? 

and then my son replies

no sorry I don't think I am available today 

do you have the right address because I'm selling the scooter on my friend's behalf 

so he was worried that there was some kind of confusion there 

I think because he was confused by this letter carrier business 

never mind

he's got it 

I'm free today can you collect it around 11?

okay so to make the sending 

this is already confusing because there... there's a courier involved and an envelope and an e scooter so I guess you would call it making the sending 

I need your name address City total amount and email address 

and to his total credit - I'm so proud - my son gave his dirty email address 

I hope you have a clean address and a dirty address and... and he only gave the postcode as well

this will become crucial later on 

okay one last thing you need to know the postage is on me but there is an insurance charge for the envelope which you have to pay before but on that don't worry I will add that to the initial sum so you don't lose a single cent

again and I wish I had a red flag... I've got my hat...

another tiny little red flag here 

it seems we have pounds and pence in this country and again I don't want to be a a snob we don't use cents in this country but this is what they call in drama... 

I think this is what they call uh telegraphing the ending 

I think this is a little plot development here that she has introduced an insurance charge on the envelope

we'll just bear that in mind as the plot thickens 

okay sounds great thanks

and also I love by the way that she's writing these big essays uh my son's... yep yep okay

okay well received stay connected I will contact the service I will keep you informed as the email address is for the notifications that's the GLS express service will send you for the instructions to follow 

and that's a question as well um

okay 

my son's got this so proud

please check your mailbox and spam or junk mail at your email address as the GLS service has informed me that they have sent you an email with confirmation and instructions to follow have they done so if so please take a look at the emails and take a screenshot of the emails so I can see

okay got it 

and he did that he... so he screenshotted this email from the GLS 

would you like to see the emails?

let's let's Dive In 

by the way there's a really nice stock photo at the top here 

this must be a completely legit company

um so I've blanked out the few details they had and you can see that the quantity Goods so that's the scooter is £25 and there's Insurance costs £42 an additional insurance cost of £52 so the total amount that the seller should receive is £255 

fantastic there's even a tracking number here as well what a legitimate Courier Service 

this is a bit confusing though that this is an email... can you see these lines? 

there are... it's almost as if this email has been replied to seven times before it reached my son! 

I wonder if that's a clue as to whether or not this is legit 

GLS aren't very good at English either

GLS will purchase insurance on behalf of the recipient for the true dollar value of any loss or damage to property affecting the shipment again 

We don't have dollars in this country - I don't want to interrupt you GLS sorry 

this email will be sent to you as soon as you have paid the insurance costs so that our delivery groups can come to...

delivery groups! Well have they got they got roaming gangs of delivery drivers?

our delivery groups can come to you with an amount of £255 - in a different colour there - to deliver them to you and pick up the item 

we ask you to pay the insurance cost by clicking below 

click here to pay

well we won't need this button will we? 

Because the buyer has said that she's paying these Insurance costs! 

I love this box here

this mail is impossible to cancel 

oh I've had mails like that before

you know the ones that are impossible to cancel 

do you have some impossible to cancel mails in your inbox? 

I bet you do because they're impossible to cancel

they just stay there 

If you cancel after receiving this email, the amount paid by your customer Dimitar... hang on that's not that's not that's not even the name of the person buying the scooter 

but you know it could be you know friend or or family member with a completely different name 

they will will not be refunded therefore he can file a complaint with our security service Tracer police GLS for legal action

so GLS this delivery company that's not very good at English

- they have a whole Police Department 

I think I've seen this show on Channel 5 plus one

"well maybe he got taken for a ride" 

Tracer police GLS

yes they spend all their time tracking down people who haven't paid the insurance charges or have canceled the email 

the entire GLS team wishes you a nice day

oh that's nice because they've underlined it 

ah so in response to this nonsense my poor son said 

I've got the scooter completely ready to collect good for you 

okay you have received the letter from the GLS service but I hope you have received the instructions in let's talk about the insurance costs as I have just paid the delivery costs and also I have finally added you to the initial amount so don't worry everything will be fine so I I am waiting for your cordial response

all right so at this point we have no idea what's going on and it's at this point that we think we know what's going to happen next 

I think you can guess what's going to happen next in this twist 

my son showed me these ridiculous texts

I think we came to the firm conclusion that this was a complete waste of time uh so I wanted to nix this off because this is literally the first I saw of it uh so I joined the conversation

this is my son's father 

the email from GLS is from a Gmail address not GLS

sure enough serviceGLSe330 gmail.com 

feel free to add those to your uh address dress book 

I... I... I just thought I'm going to just terminate this I was trying to think at this point what is the best way to terminate this as brutally as possible 

so I... I just mashed out this on his keypad

I expect this correspondence to be terminated immediately or I will forward this correspondence and IP addresses to Child Protection Services I... 

look if they can make up a whole delivery service I can start making up organizations in the UK! 

oh by the way GLS... so we did like 7 Seconds research so GLS happens to be the name of the royal Mail's delivery service in Europe

it's like a European brand for the Royal Mail 

it doesn't even operate in this country and my son noticed this as well 

that the GLS Logo - even the GLS logo isn't correct under GLS information 

this is more like GLS misinformation so none of this exists in in real life 

see I'm still processing all of this and he's processing all of this 

I'll show you what to do in a moment because I should have just done this just from the outset but anyway I go I just add some more just for the fun of typing your screenshots show no email address and incorrect logos

they came back instantly with the next page of the script because we've jumped ahead in their little story they've had to like Jump Ahead really quickly so this essay suddenly appeared

let me explain the situation I think we need some some music some appropriate music GLS is simply asking you to pay the mail insurance fee which is £42 to secure the mail during shipping due to the distance between us that's why I put an extra £42 on top of the original amount so you don't lose a single penny at the end are we're back into the currency of my country that's that's good of you I have already paid GLS for the delivery 

no I I didn't see that coming! the mail has already been sent by GLS 

all you have to do is pay the GLS fee to receive it 

GLS by the way has got this really strange spacing every time it's mentioned in the text almost as if it has been pasted in from some other script

if you do not pay the shipping charges... 

what's going to happen...

Please be aware that if I cancel the shipment GLS will not refund the charges I have already paid thank you for your understanding and please let me know what happens next but please be aware that the 42 fee that GLS charges you will not be lost 

sorry I blew that line completely

you get the jist 

if you have noticed I have added an extra £42 to The Courier and the £42 you will pay for the insurance will be refunded as I have already added it to you so as to not penalize the transaction which means that you will receive a total of £255 in your envelope I hope you have understood me 

GLS does not operate in the UK as its Royal Mail's European brand if you continue to contact my child I'll be forced to involve Facebook's Child Protection Team immediately 

now that's a joke isn't it that...

that Facebook would have a child protection they don't they refer to them as Minors and on their help center uh they basically say you're on your own basically Facebook...

Facebook have nothing to do with any of this 

they just facilitate this kind of of nonsense

what's frustrating is that this is clearly following a script that has been pasted multiple times this isn't obviously uh a real person 

the Facebook profile looks legit so so I've blanked their name out because it's clearly someone who's been hacked or phished they...

this the first thing we checked... first thing my son checked was that this account wasn't set up two weeks ago 

but what's frustrating for us is that it's so obvious that they they hammer out these this kind of scam... and to think that Facebook doesn't have the technology to spot multiple messages that are the same going out to different people on on Facebook Marketplace 

how can I put this it does not reflect well on meta and it doesn't reflect well on Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook

you and I have to deal with this nonsense on a daily basis if we want to use their stupid platform so I guess it's on us isn't it? 

it's all on us

it's all our fault 

anyway I thought i'd... I'd dial it up a little

I need your phone number now so that we can instigate proceedings

don't worry - instantly - don't worry about the phone number I have Facebook on the line

yeah right like that's going to happen 

and they will for the IP address details

Facebook's team are asking if you can contact them through the contact center

I think my son and I had had enough so what we did was we clicked on the three dots here that brings up the option 

I should have screen grabbed this - sorry - but it brings up the option to block this person 

and you can hit report and you can choose scam as an option 

poor lady that your photos are being used for trying to get 42 pound off people 

so we've not heard anything since since we blocked this profile 

there was a moment where I just thought "oh no they know where I live they know where we live" and then actually we didn't because they didn't ask for the house number 

so even that didn't add up

how is The Courier going to arrive with just the postcode?

so they have a dirty email address and they have a postcode uh which might be enough to to do damage

I don't know so to protect myself I'm I'm sharing this with you so if anything happens to me or the scooter or GLS the poor delivery company who's uh out of pocket by £42

anyway I am calling this a dad delivers success! 

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