Shannon Church of Kenilworth, Ont., was looking for cast iron planters and turned to Facebook Marketplace in hopes of getting a deal.

She regularly visits the online buying and selling site, and on Dec. 1, she contacted a person who said they lived in Kitchener, and whose advertised price she liked.

“We agreed on four planters for $50,” Church said in an interview with CBC. “I was very clear about reiterating that [price] and it was all confirmed and everything.”

The seller asked Church to send an e-transfer and gave her an address in Kitchener to pick up the planters.

“He called multiple times before I sent the e-transfer to confirm I was going to send it,” she said.

But Church never got her planters. Once she sent the money, the seller stopped answering her calls or texts.

After that, Church looked up the Kitchener address the seller had given her and found it didn’t exist. She also found a woman from Hamilton who said she was scammed out of $70 by the same person and for the same cast iron planters.

Church eventually found eight other people who said they were ripped off by the seller, but she’s still mad at herself for falling for it.

“I’m annoyed, but it was my own fault, right?” Church said. “Like, it was too good to be true. I should have questioned it from the get-go, but lesson learned.”

Scams cost Canadians millions

Church is far from alone.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says more than 30,000 people have been defrauded in 2024, for a combined total of $503 million lost to fraud — from romance scams to identity theft.

Merchandise fraud alone, including Facebook Marketplace scams, cost Canadians $7.1 million between January and September this year. In 2023, merchandise fraud led to $11.1 million in total losses.

Robert Anderson of Ottawa received a message from a person on Facebook Marketplace who was eager to purchase a product he purportedly had for sale. (Submitted by Robert Anderson)

Sometimes, sellers are scam victims.

Robert Anderson of Ottawa has been selling items online for years. He said it’s a great way to recycle old items and make extra money, and the transactions are usually pretty straightforward. People make contact, ask questions about the product and try to get a lower price before buying it and sending money.

But since this fall, Anderson said, started noticing odd interactions with some buyers.

“You usually get an offer to buy it like almost right away, and they say they’re willing to pay the full price, but they’re out of town and they can’t pick it up for a few days. … [they say], ‘Is it OK to pay now with an e-transfer and then pick it up?’ And they just want your email address.”

That’s when the email is used to send a link to a third-party site, Anderson said, and it requires the seller to sign up to claim the money.

“The people will tell you that, ‘Oh, it’s a business account. And because it’s a business account you have to sign in to claim your money.'”

He said the first time he got such a link, he got suspicious and started asking some questions.

“When I begin to question a little further, they just dropped the whole thing and I never hear from them again.”

Anderson received this notice in a digital transaction he was going to make with a prospective Facebook Marketplace buyer. (Submitted by Robert Anderson)

Important to report cybercrime and fraud

Det. Const. John Armit of Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) said what happened to Church and Anderson are common when it comes to online marketplace scams.

He said the tip-off you may be dealing with scammers is they’re too eager to sell products or buy them at full price, they don’t ask any questions or they send a third-party link for payment.

Often, the fake online buyers and sellers are involved in some prolific fraud action, said Armit, who’s with the economic crimes and corruption unit, anti-rackets branch and financial crimes services.

“It’s to allow them to launder money and use money mules, so they could be witting or unwitting money mules,” said Armit, who also works closely with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

“You could have someone that is a victim of another fraud that believes that they’re receiving some of the funds from whatever fraud pitch they have, and they can keep a percentage and then they have to move the funds to the next intermediary. Sometimes we’re seeing the money actually be cashed out and then converted into crypto and sent overseas.”

Armit said that last year, there were 460,000 calls to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, but the organization can only process 250 calls a day.

He said that’s why it’s important for victims to get the word out that they’ve been scammed.

“We encourage people to report through their police jurisdiction, to those online [selling] platforms, but also to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre online reporting system,” said Armit, adding people should also warn others on the website if they’ve fallen victim to a scam.

“By posting stuff about these bad actors, I think it’s naming and shaming,” he said.

“We’re not going to arrest our way out of cyber crime or fraud. Prevention is the biggest tool that we have to protect the public, but also reporting it so we can disrupt it.”

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Both Church and Anderson said they’ve reported the scams to Facebook and police, but aren’t sure if the people involved will ever be caught.

Anderson said he’ll continue to use Facebook Marketplace, but will definitely ask a lot of questions.

“We’re just very careful, and if somebody comes back to me and says, ‘Oh, I’m sending you an e-mail or a e-transfer and I’ll pick it up in a few days, blah, blah, blah,’ I usually just say, ‘Listen, just let’s forget about it because I know this is a scam and I prefer just to sell with somebody else,’ and just leave it at that,” he said.