Facebook Marketplace Rant: Sellers Beware

So Facebook is trying to automate the selling of items through it's Marketplace. You can connect your bank account to Facebook, then list something and have Facebook estimate and charge the buyer, then print a shipping label from Facebook.

There is no ability to mark "buyer pays return shipping" or "no returns or refunds accepted" - which strikes me as being prone to scams. 

So I go and list some Roku's and extra parts for cheap, and suddenly get a ton of these "so and so has placed an order" ...uhhh what's an order? Then it marks my shipping rate for a Roku remote as $4. Well I hope it's $4. I hope packaging that remote and dropping it off doesn't cost me anymore than the $4 Facebook has charged the buyer. 

Then I wonder "what happens if the buyer gets my item then says "it doesn't work" but returns me a different items? I need to document serial numbers on these things" - which meant cancelling "orders" and taking more pictures. 

Then I find out that facebook has listed my items as "No Returns for This Item" without me even knowing that! 

It all just seems a bit dicey for the uninitiated. I've sold tons of stuff nationally via ebay or MTB websites, shipped stuff across oceans and internationally too. But I always document document document and make sure the buyer is aware of every detail possible before I ship something so neither of us is screwed by the other (or the shipper). Facebook seems to be going about this in a very rushed manner with limited policy documentation. 

FB is gonna be Fbing.



seriously, though.   This is no different than anything FB has done over the past decade.  They keep adding new features without fixing the existing ones.

I have a Facebook Pay account set up but there is no way in berking hell am I connecting it to my bank account.  While I'm not a Facebook hater, I also have zero trust in them.  I'm probably going to deactivate it.  Either the buyer has to get their Paypal account fixed (typical excuse...), meet me to pay cash or find another seller.

Edit: Holy Hell... Facebook makes it a PITA to remove your Pay account.  You have to go into the "Ads Manager" section and remove it there.  That was painful... 

Ever since eBay changed to no PayPal a month or so ago, FB marketplace has been awash with new sellers. I only sell in-person on there because it is such a E36 M3show. Also if you pay via FB Pay, it's like "friends and family" and there's no recourse for fraud. I would be very, very, very wary of any type of sales actually ON the FB platform. Use it to advertise your wares, then conduct your transaction on PayPal/Venmo/etc.

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :

Ive bought six things in the last two weeks from Ebay with PayPal. So what am i missing there?

Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :

Ive bought six things in the last two weeks from Ebay with PayPal. So what am i missing there?

Its not being fully removed until 2023 so its still there and still an option.   Seems odd that Ebay once bought PP and then split and now this but Im sure someone somewhere has their reasons. 

You can still pay with PayPal  when you buy on eBay, but sellers are being forced to used eBay's Managed Payments to receive their money.

A friend of mine just came out with a similar warning. She listed an item with shipping. The person bought it in person since they were close. Since she has no tracking number, fb refuses to release the funds and is threatening to block her ability to sell in the future. So she is out the item and the money.

In reply to Toymanswife :

Makes sense.  It's Facebook's attempt at monetizing a feature they have been providing for free.  In reality, this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.

I guess it makes sense. They have undercut the Craigslist competition by providing a superior messaging/selling interface and have now moved on to the thing that monopolies are made for: gouging others to their own benefit. 

I like capitalism but I don’t ever forget that people are people

No way in hell FB is a superior interface........

bentwrench said:

No way in hell FB is a superior interface........

lololol

I regret that I have but one up vote to give

Bumping this back up, because I've noticed lately that the car search has gotten basically unusable.  The first 20 results are dealership ads, the remainder is "Ships to you" bullE36 M3 from halfway across the country. 

It's bad enough you can't (effectively) search by year/make/model, like EVERY other interface out there, but when I type in "Celica" and newest year "1990",  and highest price "$2000" I don't want to see a bunch of dealer ads for a buick sedan for $14000.  I don't care how much the dealer is paying in advertising fees.  Also, I can search three times in an hour for a specific type of car, all in the same area, and different ads, none of them new, will show up in all three different searches.  So I'm sure I'm not seeing everything available.

It is terrible in every way and I hate it.  But make specific forums and craigslist are both dead, so what other options are there?  I went to a popular toyota forum I used to use and ALL of the ads in their marketplace are new users bumping years (decades) old threads asking, "Is this still for sale?"

I'm hoping this annoys people enough that they're driven back to Gregslist where I hope they think, "I guess $5 isn't so bad after all.."

You guys are buying/selling on FB with anything BESIDES cash in person? I would never consider it, even as a young urban millennial. Maybe Paypal in person with our phones out, but only maybe.

I agree "ships to you"  is the most annoying, rage-inducing feature they have ever concocted. 

I HATE the search functions, even with local pick up only selected half of the items are half the country away.  Getting my hopes up for stuff isn't fun.

This would be a good time for Craigslist to lower their listing fees to $0.50. Nobody would balk at that whatsoever, and while there are some things I like overall better about facebook, Craigslist was by far the better platform. 

Using the search filters on marketplace is maddening. Select "newest listing first" and it only shows the same 5 listings it has shown for the past month, and they are not remotely what I am looking for.....

FB was so maddening that I turned back to my old friend Craig and his list. I just sold 2 vehicles and a travel trailer in 3 weeks with absolutely no issues other than just being careful who I dealt with and making the cash exchange at a bank to verify bills. 

I haven't looked, but is there some way to provide feedback to FB regarding how screwed up Marketplace is and that "we" are turning to other venues?

PayPal polices the money they get far far too much imo.

A client paid me for a service and they basically told me that I either coughed up a tracking number or I wasn't getting the money. How does one send construction work thru the mail again?

He ended up getting it figured out on his end enough for me to get the money but holy berkeley....

one of the other annoying quirks I've picked up on (besides people advertising "maximum downpayment" or "lease takeover" prices... but that was just as ubiquitous on CL as FB), is the number of $1234 advertisements where the price is listed in the description, but they have to put $1234 in the price because FB won't accept a "real"/"market" value.  really screws up challenge scouring

I've had a GMT400 hood listed on marketplace for a couple years now for $50. Marketplace thinks I really really need to offer shipping on my item. Lolz

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

bentwrench said:

No way in hell FB is a superior interface........

lololol

I regret that I have but one up vote to give

Ease of posting, integrating with existing account, built in messaging. I’d say that counts as superior. Why else did everyone go to Marketplace then, the ads for diet pills along the sides?

I still prefer c’list, but in many ways FB made the whole process easier

P3PPY said:

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

bentwrench said:

No way in hell FB is a superior interface........

lololol

I regret that I have but one up vote to give

Ease of posting, integrating with existing account, built in messaging. I’d say that counts as superior. Why else did everyone go to Marketplace then, the ads for diet pills along the sides?

I still prefer c’list, but in many ways FB made the whole process easier

I'm not on FB but I would argue that easier is not better or superior. The mass migration happened when $5 listings happened. Sellers took their sales; even the ones that would be free on c.list, to FB.

In reply to chandler :

I think the other reason FB had such a strong following is that you can see how long the person has had an account and there is direct messaging. It puts the parties on both ends at ease. I never had any issues with CL other than my lack of making good decisions buying stuff, but that's a me problem.