Does Facebook Marketplace have buyer protection?

What Purchase Protection covers, and what it doesn’t

Purchase Protection is Meta’s refund program for Marketplace orders paid through Facebook checkout. If Meta approves a claim, you get back the full purchase price and any shipping costs. The catch is the word “checkout”: checkout and shipping are offered mainly in the US, and most Marketplace deals anywhere else are local pickups paid in cash or by transfer, which nothing from Facebook covers.

Meta lists the exclusions in one line on its help page: purchases made through third-party sites, local pickups, Messenger transactions and other messaging services don’t qualify. So if a seller says “Facebook protects you” and then asks you to pay by e-Transfer, Zelle or PayPal Friends and Family, Facebook does not protect you. Our guide to buying shipped items safely explains how checkout works from the buyer’s side.

How to file a Purchase Protection claim

Claims are short and have tight time limits, so start the day something goes wrong.

1. Message the seller from the order. Meta’s seller policy asks buyers to contact the seller within 3 days of delivery to try to sort it out.
2. Gather proof. Photos of the damage or of what arrived, the tracking page from the carrier’s own website, and screenshots of the listing and the chat.
3. Open the order in your Marketplace purchases and choose the option to get help with the order or report a problem.
4. File the claim within 7 days of delivery, or within 60 days if the purchase was unauthorized.
5. Watch for Meta’s decision in your Facebook notifications and email. If the claim is approved, the refund covers the full price and shipping.

Scammed outside checkout? Do this now

If you paid any other way, Facebook can’t refund you, but you still have moves. Order matters, and speed matters most.

1. Call your bank, card issuer or payment app. Say it was fraud. Some payments can still be cancelled or recalled in the first hours, and the FTC advises disputing card charges with the card company.
2. Save the evidence before it disappears. Screenshot the listing, the seller’s profile and the whole conversation, and keep receipts and reference numbers. Scammers delete profiles fast.
3. Report on Facebook. Report the listing, the seller’s profile and the Messenger conversation, each from its own menu. Reports help Facebook remove the account before the next buyer finds it.
4. Report to police and your national fraud centre (the list by country is below). A report number helps when your bank investigates.
5. Lock down your accounts if you shared anything. If you gave a verification code, a password or a card number, change passwords, turn on two-factor sign-in, and call your bank or phone carrier.
6. Stop all contact. Don’t pay a fee to get a refund, a “release” charge, or a second payment to free up the first.

Your options by payment method

The UK row needs one caveat: the reimbursement rules cover payments to a fraudster, not a genuine seller whose item turned out to be faulty. For more on choosing a method before you pay, see our guide to Marketplace payment methods.

Where to report, by country

Report on Facebook as well, whatever country you’re in. On Kijiji, report the ad from the ad page; our Kijiji scams guide has the details.

Watch out for recovery scams

Once you’ve lost money, you become a target again. “Recovery” scammers contact victims claiming to be a lawyer, an agency, the police or even Meta, and offer to get the money back for an upfront fee. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre recorded 933 reports and $25.9 million lost to recovery pitches in 2025, which puts them among the costliest frauds of the year.

Real fraud centres and police don’t charge to investigate, and they won’t ask you to pay by gift card, crypto or transfer. If someone you didn’t contact offers to recover your money, it’s the same scammer, or a friend of theirs.

Next time: stop it before you pay

Almost every case on this page starts the same way: money sent before the buyer had the item. Our guides to the deposit scam and the full list of Marketplace scams show the lines that give it away.

On a computer, Sift, a free browser extension for Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, does part of that reading for you. It marks listings that ask for a deposit or payment first, push you to WhatsApp, text or email, or come from a seller who can’t meet, with a “Check this” chip you can click to see what matched. It doesn’t replace meeting and inspecting; it helps you pick which listings are worth a message.