Thread: What a garbage site facebook is.

I call it Faeces book, because it is full of S**T

One of my old car's wipers had a problem. A wrecking yard was advertising. So, I sent the wreckers an email enquiring about what they had. I wanted to ensure we were talking about the right model before paying and having the part sent to me. I was banned from using Marketplace over that one. Though, when I explained my experience to Facebook, and asked them to review the issue I had Marketplace reinstated.

Weirdly though, I don't have the same lineup of features in Facebook, including Marketplace, via Firefox, but when I use it via Chrome everything is there.

I've been undertaking a massive clean up of our house since my wife died 7 months ago.
Over 200 boxes and bags of shoes, clothes, bric-a-brac, kitchen stuff, a dozen pieces of pieces of furniture, and ~10 electrical items have gone to Op shops,

However there are many electrical items (ie don't have the right integral mains plug), or boxes of loose craft stuff, etc that Op shops wont take. I could have just put these in the bin but instead I decided to try and advertise these on FB, most of which were advertised as free items.
For items that I put a price on, all I got were scammers.
For free stuff I'd immediately get dozens of calls and/or messages, but the "buyer" often did not turn up and I sometimes had to contact the 2nd, 3rd or 4th caller to come and get the items.

In the end I pulled all the FB ads and put them on Gumtree where I still got scammers but not as often.
Instead of advertising items for free I'd advertise them for next to nothing, ie $10-$20.
When a buyers says they are interested, i message them that I don't want any money for it and I will leave it on the front veranda to pick up, but if they don't come soon it might get stolen !). Stuff usually goes within a few hours.

Recently I advertised a 100 year old restored blacksmiths vice on GT for $250.
A "buyer" contacted me to ask if it was in "perfect condition" which rang a small bell. When I replied "No, it's not in perfect condition, it's a 100 year old item used in a harsh environment so it has a few chips and dents". The buyer said "no worries I'll take it" and then proceeded to spew the usual scammers spiel!

I recently had to sell my old ICE car after getting an EV - it was 8 years old, relatively high km, and (horror of horrors) a manual. I would have happily donated it to friend's kids as a first car at a bargain price, but none of them can drive stick these days....

Put up ads on a few sites, including Facebook. This just generated every scam under the sun - a complete waste of time. In the end I had to use CarSales (not cheap), but at least this only generated real genuine enquiries, and the car was sold at a good price not one week later.

Facebook has been completely trashed by the low life, and I don't even bother having an account now. Gumtree not quite so bad, but rapidly headed in the same direction IMHO.

I'm surprised you weren't troubled on CarSales too. All the car market websites are available to scammers.

The last car I spotted (and bought) was advertised on Facebook. (I noticed later it was also advertised on Gumtree and CarSales.) But I dealt with the people on Facebook primarily. I find Gumtree and CarSales rather slow on the email side. Possibly because most people use their computers for it, and people being people tend to do other things during the day. I just guessing. However, I gather lots of people use Facebook on their phones and people tend to keep their phones close by. From a buyer's perspective, my enquiries went well, followed up on a phone conversation, and then went along to do the deal.

I recently advertised an office I own for rent (in West Perth, which has a lot of available offices). I also used Gumtree. I felt that there was no other way of doing this without turning it into an expensive business, and also remaining dependent on agents, who are passive and unlikely to represent my needs as well as I.

For a start, FaceBook has categories for renting apartments, houses, units, but not offices. So I placed the advert in the apartments section and headed it “office for rent”. That passed by the FB police. Still, 50% of the response wanted to rent an apartment (people are desperate for homes and read what they want to read), 25% were scanners, but the remaining 25% were legitimate. Response was the same on Gumtree, although there it was possible to title the advert correctly.

When you want to do it as cheaply and quickly as possible, there are few other options available (in my situation). It was rented eventually to a connection from Gumtree.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Ye Facebook gets a lot of flack, and some of it is justified.
But have you guys ever hang out with a bunch of Old moaning know-all’s, ask Ten of them I bet get you 11 answers an a ton of BS.

We advise an use Facebook to generate business, an it works well for us, yes we get some dumb questions,but so does the advertising on the site of the Ute.(We run a handmade business)
Case:

Stopped in town too check the mail box , gentleman probably mid 60s ,approaches me an asks if I would clean his 6 car garage gutters, he’s not allowed on a ladder anymore,told him my price($60 cash that’s cheap for you cheap A…… actually very cheap I would charge a lot more in Melbourne).
An said I could do it after hours.
He then offers me $30, which after business costs is approximately $15, well below minimum wage($21 I think).
Not sure if his gutters still need cleaning!!!

My point is if you don’t like Facebook just bloody scroll on by.

Any of you guys remember the Trading post, I do you advertise on that, an spend the evenings answering calls an telling them too stop dreaming, just like in the Castle.

It docent matter the medium, it still attracts the idiots, do we have any idiots here ?? Maybe ask Neil.

Cheers Matt.

I've had a caravan advertised on Caravansales.com for about 3 weeks and for the $50 I paid for it so far have only had half a dozen enquiries - all scammers.

The same (free) ad in GT has generated about a dozen enquiries but I could only identify 3 as scammers.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

SNIP

Cheers Matt.

Update. Just put a bunch more stuff up on fakebook and scumtree and have a Ukraine flag as the last pic. And again, not many scumbags trying me on...
Most of the dags can't read english well so they cut n paste, it's getting easy to spot n block on fakebook

I'd sell here but there's too many avenues that people contact you on and it does my head in... Fakebook and scumtree have inhouse messaging and that's it. Makes it easy to keep track of things.

Recently tried marketplace for the first time ever as I have as little to do with Facebook as possible. I was after a coffee machine and the absurd number of ads from scammers defied belief. $1000 machine brand new for $100 with a redirection link. Kept reporting them but they just kept reappearing. I will never bother with marketplace again.
Us mods on Renovate Forum did a good job keeping that type of trash out.

Originally Posted by phild001

Recently tried marketplace for the first time ever as I have as little to do with Facebook as possible. I was after a coffee machine and the absurd number of ads from scammers defied belief. $1000 machine brand new for $100 with a redirection link. Kept reporting them but they just kept reappearing. I will never bother with marketplace again.
Us mods on Renovate Forum did a good job keeping that type of trash out.

That scammer's been around for at least a year. What makes fakebook so bad is the scammer doesn't change a thing. Now I know crapbook has the functionality to filter out pics and specific wording, sentences... and the ability to shadow ban users... but they don't. The scammers been reported hundreds of times and crapbook won't act. But! I post a replacement blade for a hand plane and get suspended because I've trying to sell a weapon. But no one selling an actual kitchen knife get suspended... Effin idiots working for and running the site.

Apart from woodworking, one of my other interests in life is Land Rovers. I have learned never to even attempt to buy or sell a Land Rover or any parts / accessories etc on either farcebook or scumtree. Both are full of scammers, and farcebook is run by a bunch of complete idiots (as shown in above examples where people have been banned for trying to sell a blade for a plane or similar).

Fortunately, one of the best Land Rover Owners' forums in the world is based here in Australia, and you can buy / sell with confidence on this forum, as well as share technical knowledge and experience with like minded persons. One of the things I have liked most about this Woodworking forum since joining is the similarity between it and the Land Rover forum that I am a member of.

I was reminded of this post about an old B&D electric drill, and what a beauty it is too.

Then while searching Facebook marketplace for something, I came across an old welder - antique welder was the description. (Yeah, I hate Facebook too, but it has its uses.) I wasn't interested in the welder other than as a historical curio, but I just had to contact the seller. He said it was his father's and his father's before that. And I can believe it. The welder has a label giving the company address in Mascot, NSW. There's a block of flats at that address now.

It'll be a transformer welder, of course. The guy said it still works. I bet it'll still work in a hundred years from now. I reckon those photos are just wonderful.

Sharp eyes will pick up the company phone number: MU2311. It just makes me smile!

1.jpg2.jpg3.jpg4.jpg5.jpg

you guys do realise most of the bans etc happen from a computer learning words/pictures and just guessing if an item should be banned (or someone reporting it) the sheer volume of ad's on market place (not just here but around the world) could not be vetted by humans.

Under the hood: Facebook Marketplace powered by artificial intelligence

most of the scams are just auto script bots as well. job sites like "fiver" will even write you a custom one for you which will spit out all the responses you want, and i can only assume gives a notification at a certain level in the scam for a human to take over. So it doesn't matter if you have a Ukrainian flag or a naked lady as your profile pic its just a computer program targeting you.




ask the mods just how many fake profiles and attacks it probably gets in a day,