Scammed on Facebook Marketplace? What to do in the first hour, and after

The first instinct after losing money on Marketplace is to message the seller again. Don’t. The next hour belongs to the people who can actually move money back: your bank, your card company or the app you paid with. Reports come second.

The first hour, in order

1. Call the money first. Ring your bank, card issuer or payment app, on the number on your card or in the app, never one a seller or “support” account gave you. Use the word fraud. A transfer nobody has collected or a card payment that hasn’t settled can sometimes be stopped, and every hour lowers the odds.
2. Screenshot everything while it still exists. The listing with its photos and price, the seller’s profile and its web address, the whole Messenger conversation, and your payment receipt showing the name, email, phone number or handle the money went to. Scammers delete profiles fast, and the receipt may be all that ties the account to a real person.
3. Stop replying. Don’t threaten, don’t argue, and don’t pay anything else. A loss is often followed by a “refundable” insurance fee, a courier deposit or a release charge, each one a second payment to the same person. Meta’s own advice is to stop communicating and report.
4. Report the listing, the profile and the chat on Facebook, using the steps below. Report before you block, because blocking hides their profile from you.
5. File a police or fraud-centre report and get a reference number. In the US that means ReportFraud.ftc.gov; in Canada, the national Report Cybercrime and Fraud system. The list by country covers the rest. Your bank will ask for the number.
6. Lock down anything you shared. A verification code, a password, a card number or a photo of your ID each needs its own cleanup, covered in shared a code or your ID.

Getting your money back, by how you paid

Facebook can refund only its own checkout. For everything else, your bank, card issuer or app decides. Cards come with dispute rights; money you sent yourself is the hardest to bring back, because to the bank it looks approved.

Cards

For a US credit card, the FTC says a billing-error dispute must reach the issuer in writing within 60 days of the first statement showing the charge; the issuer has 30 days to acknowledge it and 90 to settle it, and you can withhold the disputed amount meanwhile. Call first, then send the letter. Canadian issuers set their own chargeback limits, so call the day it happens.

Debit cards depend on what happened. If money left without your say-so, US federal rules (Regulation E) make your bank investigate. If you pressed Send because a seller lied, many banks call it authorized. If an app pulled the money from your credit card and says no, ask the card issuer too.

PayPal, Venmo and Cash App

For PayPal Goods and Services, open the Resolution Center and choose Report a Problem. You can escalate to a claim after at least 7 days, and PayPal closes the dispute at 20 days if you don’t, so set a reminder. Friends and Family payments aren’t covered by PayPal’s buyer protection; our PayPal on Marketplace guide explains why scammers ask for them.

Venmo is similar: a payment tagged as a purchase can be covered by its Purchase Protection, and Venmo says it may not recover a personal payment that wasn’t (Venmo on Marketplace has the detail). For Cash App, the FTC’s advice covers every money app: report the payment, say it was fraud and ask for a reversal. Expect a no for a payment you made yourself, and report anyway.

Bank transfers: Zelle, e-Transfer, the UK and Australia

Zelle has no refund desk; your bank handles it. Ask them to recall the payment and whether it qualifies under the imposter rule: since mid-2023, banks on Zelle have repaid qualifying cases where someone posed as your bank, Zelle or another trusted company. A seller who takes a deposit and disappears isn’t impersonating anyone, so it rarely qualifies. The Zelle guide has the full picture.

An Interac e-Transfer can be cancelled only until it is deposited, which with autodeposit is almost at once. Call anyway and ask the bank to flag the receiving account (e-Transfer scams has more).

UK buyers have the strongest rules. Since October 2024, banks must reimburse bank transfers (Faster Payments and CHAPS) sent to a fraudster, up to £85,000, if you claim within 13 months. It covers fraud only, so a real seller whose item turned out faulty isn’t included. In Australia, Scamwatch says to call your bank straight away and ask them to stop the transaction.

Gift cards, wires, crypto and cash

Scammers ask for these because they rarely come back, but the FTC still lists a step for each, shown in the table. Cash handed over at a meetup has nothing to reverse, so the police report is your only route.

What to say when you call

Have ready the date, the amount, how you paid, the recipient’s name, email, phone number or handle exactly as your receipt shows it, the confirmation number and your screenshots.

Note the agent’s name and the claim number. If the first person says nothing can be done, ask for the fraud team or a formal dispute, so the refusal is on record. Mention any code or login you shared: an unauthorized payment falls under different rules. In the UK, ask directly whether the payment is covered by the APP fraud reimbursement rules.

How to report a scammer on Facebook Marketplace

Meta lets you report the buyer, the seller and the listing. Report the chat as well: a listing can vanish in minutes, while the profile and the conversation stay. Labels shift a little between the app, a computer and app versions, so look for these.

Report the listing

1. Open the listing, in the Facebook app or at facebook.com/marketplace.
2. Open the ••• menu on the listing and choose the option to report it.
3. Pick scam, or the closest reason, and submit.

Report the seller’s profile

1. Tap or click the seller’s name on the listing to open their Marketplace profile.
2. Open the ••• menu on the profile and choose Report.
3. Choose the reason that fits and finish the steps. Their main Facebook profile has the same option in its ••• menu; report that too.

Report the Messenger conversation

1. Open the chat with the seller.
2. Tap or click their name at the top to open the chat details.
3. Choose Report (some versions put it under a privacy and support section), then pick scam as the reason.

Block them only after you have reported them. If they blocked you first and the listing has disappeared for you, Meta says a friend can report it, so send someone you trust the link and your screenshots.

Meta reviews reports against its Commerce Policies and Community Standards and can take down the listing or the account. You may never hear the outcome, and a report never returns money, but it is how a scam account gets removed before the next buyer finds it.

Bought on Kijiji?

Kijiji can’t reverse a payment either, so the first hour is the same: call your bank, save the ad and the messages, report the ad from the ad page, then file with the police and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Our Kijiji scams guide has Kijiji’s reporting steps and the texts scammers send there.

Where to report, by country

Report to the police and your national fraud centre even for a small loss. Fraud centres use the reports to spot one account hitting many buyers.

Police may not investigate a single small loss, and Calgary Police, for one, say they can’t help with civil transactions. The report’s real value is the reference number your bank asks for. Our guides to Marketplace in the UK, Canada and Australia cover how each country differs.

If you paid through Facebook checkout

You are in the best position here. Meta’s Purchase Protection covers eligible checkout orders: an item that never arrived, a payment you didn’t authorize, a seller who was removed, or an item that came damaged or very different from the listing. An approved claim refunds the full price and the shipping. Local pickups, deals arranged in Messenger, other messaging apps and outside websites aren’t covered, and a “checkout link” a seller sends you is an outside website, so treat it as a card or bank problem. Claims start from the order and have time limits; Facebook Marketplace buyer protection walks through them.

Met in person and it went wrong

Sometimes you met, paid and drove home with the wrong thing. Who can help depends on whether the seller lied or simply sold you something that broke.

A swapped or counterfeit item is fraud when the seller knew; our guides to fake sneakers and fake designer bags list what to photograph as evidence. If police say an item was stolen, you may have to give it up. In Canada, Calgary Police suggest checking serial numbers against the CPIC online database of stolen property; for phones and bikes, check whether a phone is stolen and check whether a bike is stolen list the registries. For cars, see Marketplace car scams.

A seller whose item simply failed a week later hasn’t committed a crime. If a calm message gets nowhere, small claims court is the route, and you will need their real name and address. A deposit for a rental you never saw is another matter: see Marketplace rental scams.

If you shared a code, a password or your ID

Some scams aren’t after the money in the listing. A “buyer” or “seller” asks you to read out a code to “prove you’re real”, and that code sets up a Google Voice number in your name or signs them into one of your accounts. The FTC’s rule: never share a verification code with someone who asks for it.

1. Change the password on the account the code was for (Facebook, email, Google), sign out other sessions, and turn on two-step sign-in.
2. Call your card issuer if you typed a card number into a link a seller sent, and ask for a new card.
3. Call your bank if you typed your banking login into a page from a link.
4. Report ID theft if you sent a photo of your licence or passport, or your Social Security or SIN number. In the US, IdentityTheft.gov builds a recovery plan; in Canada, report it to the CAFC and ask Equifax and TransUnion for a fraud alert.
5. Call your phone carrier if a code arrived by text you didn’t expect, and ask for extra security on your number.

Watch for the second scam

Once you have lost money, you are on a list. Recovery scammers pose as a lawyer, a recovery firm, the police, a “hacker” or even Meta, and offer to get your money back for a fee paid up front. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre recorded 933 reports of recovery pitch fraud in 2025, from 569 victims who lost $25.9 million between them, sixth among all frauds by dollar loss.

Police, banks and fraud centres don’t charge to recover money, and never ask for gift cards or crypto. Anyone you didn’t contact who offers to get your money back is the same scammer or a friend of theirs. Hang up and add it to your police report.

Will you get your money back?

It depends on the payment more than anything else. Facebook checkout and credit cards give you real odds, PayPal Goods and Services and tagged Venmo purchases decent ones, and UK bank transfers are covered by law. Zelle, e-Transfers, Friends and Family, gift cards, wires, crypto and cash rarely come back once collected. Canadians reported more than $704 million lost to fraud in 2025, across more than 112,000 reports. Report anyway: it is how banks build a case and fraud centres connect one profile to its other victims. For next time, see Marketplace payment methods.

Stop the next one before you message

Most Marketplace scams show in the listing before money moves: a deposit to hold it, Zelle only, a number to text, a seller out of town. Sift, a free browser extension for Facebook Marketplace, flags these common warning signs with a short chip on the photo: Pay first, Payment type for ways of paying that are hard to reverse, Off-site contact, Seller away, Ships only, and Very low price when the price is far below similar listings. Each chip names the sign it found, never “scam”, and the details card shows the seller’s words behind each one.

The fullest check happens when you open a listing, and a request for money that only arrives in Messenger is still yours to spot. Sift is free, needs no account, works right in Chrome (and in Edge and Brave) on a computer, and sets up in a minute. For checks that work anywhere, see the 30-second listing check, is Facebook Marketplace safe? and safe exchange zones.