Buying on Facebook Marketplace in Canada: e-Transfer, provinces and scams

How Facebook Marketplace works in Canada

Marketplace rolled out across Canada in the summer of 2017, and it now reaches from downtown Toronto to towns with one gas station. Prices are in Canadian dollars and distances in kilometres. You set a location and a radius, and Marketplace shows what people are selling inside that circle, with Vehicles and Property Rentals sitting alongside the furniture, phones and kids’ bikes. Dealers list cars there too, so the Vehicles section is not all private sellers.

The big difference from the US is how a deal ends. Facebook’s checkout and shipping are offered mainly in the United States, so a Canadian deal nearly always goes the same way: you message the seller, agree on a time, meet, look the item over and pay by cash or e-Transfer. Meta’s Purchase Protection, its refund program, doesn’t cover local pickups or anything arranged in Messenger. The only safety net is the order you do things in.

Two more things trip up newcomers. Marketplace can’t search all of Canada: it shows one area at a time, and looking in another city means changing your location to that city. And Facebook works fully in French, which matters if you buy in Quebec. More on that below.

Paying in Canada: e-Transfer, cash and what’s protected

Most Canadians pay for Marketplace items by Interac e-Transfer, and it is a fine way to pay at the right moment. The method rarely decides whether you get scammed. The timing does.

If a scammer talks you into sending an e-Transfer, Canada has no rule that makes your bank pay it back. You authorised the payment, and recovering it depends on how fast you call and on your bank’s goodwill. The UK went the other way in October 2024: its banks must now refund most victims of bank-transfer scams, up to £85,000 (our UK guide explains how it works). Canadian lawyers have written about whether Canada will follow, but for now it hasn’t.

So pay at the handover, to the person in front of you, and check that the name or email you are sending to matches who they said they are. For a car, check your daily e-Transfer limit before you meet, and finish the deal at your bank if the price is higher. How fake e-Transfer emails and “request money” tricks work is covered in our guide to Interac e-Transfer scams, and every method is compared in Marketplace payment methods.

Scams in Canada: what the numbers say

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre recorded more than $704 million in reported fraud losses in 2025, from over 112,000 reports, a record. Merchandise fraud (paying for goods that never come) made up 2,596 reports and $11.7 million. The CAFC estimates only 5 to 10% of fraud is reported at all, so the real figures are many times higher.

On Marketplace, the Canadian versions of the scams look like this:

• The deposit to hold it. “E-transfer $50 to hold it, pay the rest at pickup.” The small amount is the bait, because $50 feels safe to lose. There is no item. See the deposit scam.
• Fake e-Transfer emails and money requests, sent to look like Interac, which usually target sellers but also turn up as a “request” for a deposit.
• Cars that need a deposit or will be shipped from another province once you pay. Our guide to car scams walks through them.
• Rentals that ask for first month’s rent before you have seen the inside. See rental scams.
• Curbsiders, unlicensed dealers posing as private sellers, often with damaged or rolled-back cars. See curbsiders.
• Stolen bikes and phones, sold cheap and fast. The free checks are in the table further down.

One more, for anyone who has already lost money: the CAFC does not contact people to ask for money. Anyone who calls claiming to be from the CAFC, or from a firm that can recover your loss for a fee, is running a second scam. The full list of warning signs is in our guide to Facebook Marketplace scams.

Where to report a scam in Canada

1. Call your bank right away if money moved, on the number on the back of your card. An e-Transfer that hasn’t been deposited can sometimes still be cancelled, and the bank can flag the recipient.
2. Report to your local police. Use the non-emergency line, and keep the file number.
3. File a report with the national Report Cybercrime and Fraud system, run by the RCMP and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, at reportcyberandfraud.canada.ca, or call the CAFC on 1-888-495-8501.
4. Report the listing and the seller’s profile on Facebook, and save screenshots of the Messenger chat before the account disappears.
5. Tell the Competition Bureau if the seller presented itself as a business or a store.

Reporting rarely brings the money back, but it is how police connect one scammer to dozens of victims. If you were scammed, our guide to what to do after a Marketplace scam has the next steps.

Buying a car: what changes by province

Every province runs its own registry, lien search and dealer regulator, and the private-sale rules differ more than most buyers expect. The forms and the tax you pay are set out province by province in our Kijiji car-buying guide, and they apply to a Marketplace car just the same. This table answers a different question: who to check with before you hand over money.

A few rules hold everywhere, or nearly:

• Run the VIN through the free CPIC stolen-vehicle search before anything else. It covers cars, motorcycles, ATVs and snowmobiles; our Canadian VIN check guide shows what each check catches.
• In Ontario, a seller who can’t produce the UVIP is a reason to stop. You register within 6 days of buying.
• Sales tax is paid when you register, not to the seller, in most provinces. Alberta is the exception.
• Branded titles use different words in each province: irreparable in Ontario, non-repairable in BC and Alberta, irrécupérable in Quebec. Our guide to rebuilt and salvage titles has the full list.

Then do the checks that don’t depend on the province: an odometer check, our inspection checklist and a mechanic. The whole process, from first message to ownership, is in buying a used car on Marketplace.

Quebec: Marketplace en français

Set Facebook’s language to French and Marketplace follows. Listings appear as their sellers wrote them, which in most of Quebec means French, with the odd anglicism. A handful of words come up constantly.

Quebec also has rules that don’t exist elsewhere. Before you buy a car, search the RDPRM: Éducaloi explains that a creditor with a registered right can take the vehicle back even after you have paid the seller in full. Even in a private sale, the Office de la protection du consommateur says the buyer has a recourse against the seller for a hidden defect (vice caché), a problem serious enough that you wouldn’t have bought, or would have paid less, had you known. Write the car’s known defects into the bill of sale, so both of you know what was disclosed.

The calendar is different too. Passenger vehicles registered in Quebec must be on winter tires from December 1 to March 15, so used winter tire sets sell fast in October and November. And July 1 is Moving Day, when a large share of the province’s leases end at once. In the last two weeks of June, furniture and free stuff flood Marketplace.

Kijiji started in Montreal and Quebec City in 2005 and is still stronger in Quebec than elsewhere, so search both there. The trade-offs are in Facebook Marketplace vs Kijiji.

Canadian checks for stolen and recalled goods

A few minutes on a free Canadian database, done on your own phone at the meetup, catches the worst purchases before you pay.

A clean result only means nothing has been reported yet. A seller who won’t let you see a serial, IMEI or VIN has answered the question for you.

Meeting safely in Canada

Many police services now offer an exchange zone for online sales: a marked spot in a station parking lot or lobby, often on camera. Suggest one for anything small and valuable. For bigger items you will be at the seller’s home, so go in daylight and bring someone.

Canadian winters add their own problems. Ask that a car, snowblower or mower isn’t started before you arrive, so you hear a cold start. Bring a phone or laptop that has been outside into the warm and give it a few minutes before you judge the screen. And don’t let anyone rush the inspection because it is −20 in a dark parking lot; say you will come back in daylight. The rest of the rules are in is Facebook Marketplace safe?

The Canadian buying calendar

Canadian prices follow the seasons more than most. Buy a thing when nobody wants it, and sell it when everyone does.

Spring is bike season. From the first warm weekend into May, bikes and e-bikes get the most messages and sellers hold firm, while the same bikes sit for weeks in October and November. Lawn mowers follow the same curve, and so do patio sets. In university towns, late April and May bring student move-outs: desks, mini-fridges and bed frames priced to go.

Fall belongs to winter gear. Winter tires, snowblowers and block heaters climb in price from October, and they are cheapest in April, when sellers want them out of the garage. Snowmobiles and sleds peak with the first real snowfall; buy in spring or summer if you can wait (our guide to ATVs, snowmobiles and RVs has the checks).

Everywhere, the end of the month brings listings from people who are moving and need things gone by a date. More timing and search tactics are in how to find deals on Marketplace.

Facebook Marketplace or Kijiji?

In most Canadian cities, Marketplace has more everyday listings and faster replies: furniture, household goods, electronics, kids’ stuff. Kijiji still earns a look in four cases. Cars, where Kijiji’s search can show private sellers only. Quebec, where it started and many sellers list first. Rural areas, where listings are thin on both and every extra one counts. And buyers without a Facebook account, since Kijiji lets you browse without one.

Kijiji can also search all of Canada at once, which Marketplace can’t. Its own alerts arrive by email once a day, which is slow for a well-priced item; our guide to Kijiji alerts has faster options. The scams are the same on both sites, and so are the rules. The full comparison is in Facebook Marketplace vs Kijiji, and our Kijiji hub covers the site on its own.

Shop Marketplace and Kijiji together with Sift

Most of the work above is reading listings carefully and skipping the wrong ones. On a computer, Sift does the skipping. It is a free Facebook Marketplace filter and scam checker that also works on Kijiji once you switch it on in Sift, with the same settings on both. There is no account to make, it works right in Chrome (and in Edge and Brave), and it takes about a minute to set up.

Set your home once and Sift keeps every result inside the distance you choose, in km, from big cities down to small towns, with the distance on each card. Your home is saved in your own browser. It also hides, as each page loads:

• sponsored listings and Kijiji’s Top Ads
• “Ships to you” and partner listings
• sold and pending items, and listings you have already seen
• dealers, or just tag them if you prefer
• wanted posts, and any words you block
• listings with no price, in English or French

For cars, one click sets Sift up for a car search, and it asks for the model years and the most mileage you will accept, in km or miles. Salvage and rebuilt titles go too, Quebec’s VGA, reconstruit and irrécupérable included. Open a car listing and Sift’s VIN check reads the VIN in the ad, matches it to the year, make and model the seller wrote and shows recalls on record for that model.

Sift also reads the listings that stay, French ones included, and flags common warning signs with a red chip such as Pay first, Off-site contact or Ships only: a seller who wants money first, one who wants to move the chat to WhatsApp, text or email, and a sofa, car or phone that the seller will only ship. Category checks add the item-specific signs for cars, cards, LEGO, bikes and phones. Not sure about a Facebook Marketplace listing? Press Is this a good deal? for Sift’s AI second opinion: a verdict, a fair offer and a message ready to send the seller.

Then watch the search in Sift. It checks the search for you in the background, even with the tab closed, and sends a desktop notification soon after something new that passes your filters is listed, or an alert to your phone with Sift Pro.

Sift works inside Facebook’s one-location search, on a computer in Chrome, Edge or Brave, and the see-it-then-pay rule above still applies.