How to Avoid Getting Scammed On Facebook

The advancement of internet commerce and digital technology has sped up the buying and selling process of goods - of all shapes and sizes. Digital goods, particularly concert and sporting event tickets, have experienced a complete makeover in the last decade. It wasn’t long ago that you could buy and sell tickets at Bryant-Denny Stadium just moments before kickoff outside the stadium. The street corner of University Blvd. and Colonial Drive right in front of Reese Phifer Hall was known as one of the more common spots where you could score (or unload) a last-minute ticket to the game.

Since Covid, most sporting events and concerts have gone 100% digital with their ticketing. The good news is that driving across town or mailing tickets to other people is a thing of the past. You can now buy and send tickets with the click of a button (or iPhone) and not have to worry about keeping track of your tickets on game day. The bad news is that the world is rife with scams and the ticket industry became one of the top targets for scammers all around the world seemingly overnight.

It doesn’t have to be this way. For starters, companies like Stub Hub, Ticket Master, Vivid Seats, and Seat Geek (official UA ticket resale partner) charge astronomical fees to buyers and only give sellers a fraction of their price (before fees are even brought into the equation). Congress has had to get involved because of the simple fact that technology is so good that crappy people can create bots and software to buy up an entire ticket supply before real fans can go on and get their share. Then they take these tickets to resale sites and mark them up a fortune with incredible fees. While ticket scalping is NOT illegal in most jurisdictions, using technology (bots) to cheat the system IS illegal. Enforcement, however, is a little more difficult. Just check out this sorry being.

Where does that lead us? Many people would prefer not to deal with the online ticket oligarchy. The best deals on tickets are to be had from other individuals who can cut out the middleman altogether. At its best, it’s a win-win. However, at its worst, it is a paradise for scammers and dishonest cheats who make a living conning people out of their hard-earned money. Check out this Facebook group of roughly 150,000 members looking to score Taylor Swift tickets. Most of the “members” of this group are fake profile/bot accounts that are used to scam unsuspecting people into thinking they’ve scored a good deal. Almost everyone knows someone who has been scammed at some point or another. You would think a large company such as Facebook would do something - or be compelled by regulators - to take better action to protect its users from such an obvious abuse of its platform. (Future class action lawsuit, anyone?)

So, how can you spot a scammer? What can you do to ensure that you don’t get scammed? The top thing it comes down to is good judgment. You have to develop a sense of what to look for and review each case individually. If something seems off or too good to be true, you should be on guard. Here’s some encouraging news: I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone scam someone using their real identity. People who scam use a fake account OR a hacked account belonging to someone else. What this means is you really need to identify whether or not someone is who they say they are on Facebook. Reverse Phone Number Look Up, Google Search, LinkedIn, etc. are great ways to do some digging. If a REAL person does happen to con you, now you have a fraud case on your hand and know who to go after. I really just don’t see those types of scams. It’s almost always a fake or hacked profile.

Here are the biggest giveaways and tips that I have for identifying a scammer on Facebook:

1. They easily come down on price and accept something that seems too good to be true. If they throw in the towel on negotiating way too easily or vaguely ask what your budget is, that’s a big red flag.

2. Look at their profile picture and whatever information on their profile is public. Who likes and comments on their profile picture? Are there only one or two likes and one of them is themself? Look at some of those accounts that interact with them or like their photos. Are they fake profiles? Do they have weird names? Look for matching last names and maiden names to identify family members (indicates a real person). Are the accounts all unrelated (geography, demographics, etc.)? You can usually learn to tell which accounts are fake by looking at who interacts with them.

3. You can reverse image search the pictures on their profile to see if they belong to someone else. Most fake accounts use images and likenesses from other people somewhere in the world.

4. This is the big one: If the payment account they give you (Venmo, PayPal, etc.) does not match the person you are talking to, that's a good sign that a REAL PERSON was hacked or the account is fake. Sometimes it’s a spouse or a maiden name thing. You can do some digging and verify that the dots all connect.

Hacked accounts are the worst. You have to know that the real person isn't scamming you... It's the person who hacked them. I try to reach out to family/friends of that person and let them know. Sometimes they have no idea. Sometimes they’ve reported the hacked account to Facebook, who decided to do nothing with this knowledge (class action lawsuit…?)

5. If someone just happens to be very private and is against putting information on Facebook, they have to know it’s going to work against them when it comes to this discussion. There’s just no way around it. Some people use Facebook under an alias/burner and that’s going to make their job of proving themself nearly impossible.

6. When dealing with people you don’t know, it is good to use a service like PayPal that offers a Goods and Services feature for buyer protection. This means if you don’t get the product you were sold, PayPal will investigate and should refund you your money. Yes, roughly 2.9% of the gross proceeds come out of the seller's pocket, but it is the cost of doing business. You can negotiate whether the buyer will add more to your asking price or the seller will eat it. PayPal does a great job resolving disputes, and if you use a credit card, you shouldn’t lose money on a scam because of the dispute process. If you know or trust someone, you can opt for Friends & Family or Venmo, Zelle, etc.

I will add to this last sentence by saying that I’ve done my fair share of Friends & Family Transactions with people I don’t know over the years. While I’m never at 100% ease until I get what I paid for, I have learned that if I can positively identify who someone is, I feel pretty confident they are not going to con me. Until now, things have gone well. But there are no guarantees, of course. Caveat Emptor.