Scam red flags on every listing, before you message

What Sift flags

Sift looks for the four patterns that Meta, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre and the FTC all describe in their scam advice. When a listing matches one, a small red “Check this” chip lands on its photo. The wording is deliberate: Sift never labels a listing a scam, because a pattern is a reason to look closer, not a verdict.

A card shows up to two red chips; the details card lists every flag with the words that matched. Plain urgency such as “first come, first served” is not flagged on its own, because honest sellers say it all the time. Sift reads English and French wording.

Good signs

Not every listing is a worry, and some carry the details honest sellers include. Sift marks those with one green chip:

• one owner
• service or maintenance records
• receipt
• original box
• clean title, Carfax or no accidents
• warranty remaining

A green chip doesn’t outweigh a red one. A listing with “service records” and “e-transfer deposit first” is still a listing that wants money before you’ve seen the car.

How it works

Everything happens in your browser, as the page loads.

1. Sift reads each listing’s text. On Kijiji and Facebook search pages that’s what the card shows, such as the title and price. Open a listing and a small panel on the page checks the full description too, which is where most payment and contact details hide on Facebook.
2. It compares the price with the page. Sift takes the other listings on the same search page, sets aside promoted, free and placeholder prices, and works out what’s typical. A listing priced at less than half the middle price, with at least eight comparable listings to go on, gets the “Very low price” flag. The same page comparison drives the Below typical, Typical and Above typical badges.
3. It shows its working. Click any chip and the details card opens: price history, the fair-price verdict, each red flag with the text that matched, good signs, and links to check elsewhere.

Sift makes no network requests of its own and has no server, so listing text never leaves your computer. More on how each feature decides is on the features page.

What it looks like on a search

Say you search for a sectional within 25 km of home and get 40 results (the listings here are illustrative). Most look ordinary and carry no chip at all. Three stand out:

• A sectional at CA$150 when the rest of the page sits around CA$600 to CA$900. It gets a red “Very low price” chip. Open the details card and you see the typical price it was compared against.
• A sectional whose description says “I’m out of town, e-transfer $50 to hold it”. It gets “Pay first” and “Seller away”. Hover a chip and it reads “Check this: Pay first” with the phrase that matched; the details card quotes both.
• A sectional listed with “original receipt, one owner”. It gets a green “Receipt” chip, and a Typical price badge.

Nothing is hidden. You still see all 40 listings; you just know which three to read more carefully before you write to anyone. If you’d rather not see some kinds of listing at all, Sift’s filters can hide them.

What it can’t catch

Scammers adapt, and a careful one can write a perfectly normal listing. Sift will miss:

• A polite scammer with a normal price and clean text, who only asks for a deposit once you’ve messaged.
• Anything said in Messenger or Kijiji chat. Sift reads listings, never your messages.
• Stolen photos. That’s what the Google Lens link below is for.
• A fake or borrowed profile. Check the seller’s profile yourself: how old it is, ratings, other listings.

So the rules stay the same with or without Sift: see the item, keep the chat on the site, and pay at pickup. Our guide to Facebook Marketplace scams has the full checklist, and should you pay a deposit? covers the most common script.

Check the photo and the price elsewhere

From any listing’s details card, one click opens:

• Google Lens on the listing photo, to see whether the pictures were lifted from a shop or an older listing;
• eBay sold prices for the same title, to see what the item really sells for;
• Google Shopping, to compare with the new price;
• the same search on the other site, Kijiji from Facebook or Facebook Marketplace from Kijiji.

They are plain links that open in a new tab, never affiliate-tagged. For a fuller picture of whether the price is right, the price tracker shows every drop Sift has seen on a listing, and our guide to paying safely covers the step after you’ve decided to buy.

Where it works

Sift works on Facebook Marketplace and on Kijiji, in Chrome, Edge and Brave on a computer, and it runs alongside everything else Sift does: hiding sponsored and sold listings, price drops, new-listing alerts and a real distance radius. It doesn’t work in the Facebook or Kijiji apps or in a phone’s browser. It’s free, there’s no account, and it’s coming soon to the Chrome Web Store.

Sift is independent and not affiliated with Meta, Facebook or Kijiji.