The Dark Side of Facebook's Open Marketplaces

In recent years, Facebook's open marketplaces have been plagued by scams and fraudulent activities. One of the most disturbing examples is the proliferation of stolen car sales on these platforms. These individuals, often masquerading as legitimate sellers, will list a car for sale with a low price, usually in the thousands of dollars, and claim that it was stolen. They will then provide false documentation to convince buyers that the car is indeed stolen, thereby avoiding any potential consequences.

For instance, one individual had posted an ad on Facebook stating that they had found a 2020 Range Rover with a VIN number reported stolen. The price was set at $10,000, and the seller claimed that it was in excellent condition. However, when contacted by potential buyers, the seller revealed that they were willing to part ways with the car for just $5,000. This seems like an incredible deal, but what's even more shocking is that the seller claimed to be a "top contributor" on Facebook, with numerous posts and reviews from other users who had supposedly purchased cars from them.

But this isn't just a case of scamming buyers; it's also about defrauding insurance companies and leasing companies. Imagine someone is behind on their payments and calls in, claiming that their car was stolen when in reality they simply can't afford to pay the loan anymore. The insurance company will often pay off the loan, thinking that the car has been recovered or destroyed. Meanwhile, the individual who "stole" the car sells it to someone else, pocketing the money and leaving the insurance company with a costly mistake.

This is not an isolated incident; these scams are happening on a massive scale. The fact that Facebook allows this type of activity to flourish is mind-boggling. It's like they're creating a cat-and-mouse game where scammers can sell stolen goods with impunity, and buyers are left to wonder what hit them.

One thing that's particularly disturbing about these scams is the ease with which they can be committed. Scammers can use fake documentation, fake VIN numbers, and even fake reviews to convince buyers that the car is legitimate. And because Facebook allows users to sell goods and services directly to each other, there's no middleman to intervene or verify the authenticity of the transaction.

But what's most shocking is the response from law enforcement. While there have been reports of scammers being caught and arrested, it seems like these cases are few and far between. It's as if Facebook is giving scammers a free pass to operate, knowing that they're not going to get caught anytime soon.

The fact that these scams can happen so easily is a testament to the vastness and anonymity of online marketplaces. Anyone with an internet connection can become a seller or buyer, making it almost impossible to track down the scammers. And once you've been sucked into this world, it's hard to escape. The scammers will often use fake identities, fake reviews, and fake documentation to convince buyers that they're legitimate sellers.

In reality, buying from these scammers is a gamble that can result in significant financial losses. You might end up with a car that has been heavily modified or tampered with, which could lead to costly repairs down the road. Or worse, you might find yourself dealing with a scammer who's just looking to part with your money.

The only way to avoid falling victim to these scams is to be extremely cautious when buying online. You need to do your research, verify the seller's identity, and check for any red flags. And even then, there's no guarantee that you won't get taken in. That's why it's essential to use reputable marketplaces, such as eBay or Craigslist, which have built-in safeguards to prevent these types of scams.

But what about Facebook? Shouldn't they be doing more to prevent these scams from happening on their platform? The answer is no. While Facebook has implemented some measures to curb fake reviews and scammers, it's clear that there's still a lot of work to be done.

One possible explanation for this lack of action is the sheer scale of Facebook's user base. With over 2.7 billion monthly active users, it's impossible to manually verify every single transaction that takes place on their platform. But that's no excuse for not doing more to prevent these scams from happening in the first place.

The bottom line is that Facebook needs to take a harder stance against scammers and scambaiting. They need to implement stricter measures to verify seller identities, check for fake reviews, and prevent these types of transactions from occurring on their platform. Until then, buyers will continue to be at risk of falling victim to these scams.

And what about the individuals who are committing these scams? Are they not breaking any laws by selling stolen goods and defrauding insurance companies and leasing companies? The answer is yes. These activities are punishable by law, and those who engage in them should be brought to justice.

But for now, it seems like scammers are getting away with their schemes, thanks to Facebook's lax approach to policing their platform. It's a dark side of the social media giant that needs to be exposed, and it's up to us as consumers to stay vigilant and protect ourselves from these scammers.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwell how do you register a car without a title it's like bro what are you talking about it's 2500 bucks we can get that mind-boggling so I hate to be the poster child of getting older but I'm getting older so is everybody else you're getting older while you watch me get older right now think about that right but getting older presents significant challenges and it's a lot of it is not really serious but it's something that requires management like pain pain is joint relief like I'm a runner and my knees don't last very well after eight miles I know that's funny to say but it's true and it's something that I end up limping around a lot joint pain arthritis inflammation that's all stuff that you deal with as you get older and that's where today's video sponsor real living markets literally has you covered and they've got relief covered in two different ways they've got the lotions or the oils you could try either of them out or a combination of the two to see which works better there's a clear difference between CBD and THC THC can get you high CBD cannot so it's not like you're doing drugs or anything like that this is for pain relief and it make makes you feel good and it also feels good to support a family business here in America now now I'm showing my age because this is the stuff that gets me excited but if you want to try them out there's going to be a link right below in the description you can get 15 off your order if you use the link I mean come on life is better on the other side of that order give them a shot check the link in the description what's going on everybody rob Ferretti here and you know sometimes I get surprised right like you know cars are stolen but what do you do when you steal a car like what do you part it out you send it to Africa there's got to be some criminal underbelly operating this where they steal the cars and then they chop them up or they do something with them little did I know you could just go on Facebook and sell it just like that right like it's like wow that's weird Facebook is that morally like Superior website that doesn't let you misgender somebody doesn't let you give a political opinion somebody doesn't agree with but you can sell stolen cars that's one of those things that blew my mind and I'm like wait how are they doing this out in the open right this is almost like uh when Craigslist had the back page which was for hookers we'll just say it Craigslist had a hooker thing that got shut down everyone was morally outraged that like women were trying to charge money for sex and guys were willing to do it and then next thing you know you could just go online and connect a to c right so that's what Facebook is doing right now with these groups that aren't just like oh there's like 12 people in them these groups up 70 000 people 30 000 people I mean that's filling the entire like giant Stadium right MetLife Arena whatever it's called with people buying selling or watching the buying and selling of stolen property right it's no it just look up no title cars for sale right what why would you have a title for your car right there are legitimate reasons but when you start going in these groups you can tell these legitimate reasons aren't accurate usually when even when I bought my Supra my Supra my uh not that one my 95. the woman didn't have the title so she didn't want my money yet she's like look I have to apply to get the title it was my father's car he passed away we don't know where the title is we have to applying another one that's legitimate reason why you don't have a title but you can get one there's a couple of ways to come up with a car without a title or equipment or whatever you have and the easiest way is to go steal it right and this is rampant but the problem is when you steal it it should be difficult to get rid of right you should have like these networks of chop shops or exporters or something like that instead you have these guys just like well just go sell it I'm like hey who's got some hellcats for sale I got five G's cash and how do you know the cars that are legitimately like been rotting in somebody's yard for 30 years I don't know who the title belongs to and like whatever if somebody wants this they can have it for parts and the people just selling stolen cars and or other felonies right because it's not just stealing cars a lot of people are saying there's a lien attached to it which means there's a bank that has the car hasn't been reported stolen because the bank can't report their lease stolen and you're behind in payments so what do you do sell it for 10 grand and say come looking for it because a bank has a repo process right if you don't pay your bank the bank puts out a repossession order on your car and you get guys trolling around in their tow trucks waiting to pick up that car as soon as you turn your head and they're going to take your car and go bye-bye and bring it back to the bank right they get paid by the Banks to do this but apparently according to these guys there's laws that prevent Banks from being able to report the car stolen because they know you have it right it's not only the person who is on the paperwork can report the car stolen now granted I've experienced this in the rental car world where I couldn't report a car stolen when I gave it to a renter because it's considered conversion but once they disable the tracking that that changes the dynamic and then like a report it's stolen so there's probably conditions in which you can report a car stolen but you go on these groups and you see there is no intention to like sort of skate it's the if you know you know sort of thing it's like hey I got guy there's guys on there that can make new titles and they're like well how do you register a car without a title it's like bro what are you talking about it's 2500 bucks we can get that mind-boggling now the fact that this is again trading out in the open and you've got guys on there washing titles and this is the same thing how do you get a stolen car registered if the VIN number is reported stolen well that's where they go buy VIN numbers off of other cars and they Vin swap the cars and then it turns out you're buying a car but how can you do this why would you do this like if you're buying it for a race track it's still committing a felony if you're buying a car from somebody for 30 cents on the dollar right if you're buying a 2020 Range Rover for 10 grand you know there's a problem with that you know somebody is committing a felony and now you're buying stolen property and it's absolutely mind-boggling to me that that this transpires out in the open if you want to be like that rookie cop that goes in and be like all right let me just uh let me try to make a name for myself just look at every top contributor in these groups top contributor top contributor top contributor that guy's probably worth arresting right like it or it's not hard to build a case on that person because that guy is at the center of this and the fact that it trades openly and it's becoming like an open market for for essentially and not drugs but essentially for selling stolen or uh Insurance fraudulent cars and when I say Insurance fraudulent I just made that up it is when somebody's defrauding their leasing company or their insurance company and selling a car imagine you have a car you're behind in payments you call it in and say hey somebody stole my car but they didn't really steal your car you're just going to sell it to some other guy with a title without the title because they're going to give you 10 grand your insurance company is going to pay off your loan your insurance kind of so you're either committing insurance fraud you're hiding it from the bank and selling it to somebody this is all bad news and the fact that Facebook lets this fly is mind-boggling to me like I understand if people have stolen stuff and they want to like Hush Hush sell it but that should be difficult not easy and that's where I take an issue with this like rookie cop that goes out and be like yo I just cleaned up 20 different people selling stolen goods and maybe they do right maybe the cops are actually like straw buyers or fake buyers of these things they've got 10 grand in cash they'll come buy your car and they're they're trying to get these guys this way and they're just making it easy on them I just don't see it because cars are still being stolen people are still defrauding leasing companies people are still defrauding insurance companies and it makes everything else more expensive for us right nobody feels bad for an insurance company nobody feels bad for a leasing company they've got all this money but you got to do things by the books and if you don't you got to know some skeezy guy where there's a probably a 90 chance he's just gonna rob you and take your money and walk away anyway and that's what a lot of these people do like hey yeah send me a deposit so I know you're real you send them five grand they disappear there's no car there's no title they're just defrauding you it's a very dangerous game to play I wouldn't want to buy stolen merchandise off of somebody because I think the risk factor is significantly higher but if you're scumbag dealing with scumbag then you're ready to shoot each other over this nonsense and Facebook makes that happen wow yeah so look again I just want to be as objective as possible is there a reason to have a no title vehicle or a no title car sure like is that the predominant use of these groups not from my experience hey uh how do you disable OnStar tracking in a car I mean these are the posts that are in there and I it's just do you know if you know you know Rob Peretti thank you for watching if you're looking to buy a stolen car or steal a car and sell it somewhere there you go I hit up Facebook they've got you covered ohwell how do you register a car without a title it's like bro what are you talking about it's 2500 bucks we can get that mind-boggling so I hate to be the poster child of getting older but I'm getting older so is everybody else you're getting older while you watch me get older right now think about that right but getting older presents significant challenges and it's a lot of it is not really serious but it's something that requires management like pain pain is joint relief like I'm a runner and my knees don't last very well after eight miles I know that's funny to say but it's true and it's something that I end up limping around a lot joint pain arthritis inflammation that's all stuff that you deal with as you get older and that's where today's video sponsor real living markets literally has you covered and they've got relief covered in two different ways they've got the lotions or the oils you could try either of them out or a combination of the two to see which works better there's a clear difference between CBD and THC THC can get you high CBD cannot so it's not like you're doing drugs or anything like that this is for pain relief and it make makes you feel good and it also feels good to support a family business here in America now now I'm showing my age because this is the stuff that gets me excited but if you want to try them out there's going to be a link right below in the description you can get 15 off your order if you use the link I mean come on life is better on the other side of that order give them a shot check the link in the description what's going on everybody rob Ferretti here and you know sometimes I get surprised right like you know cars are stolen but what do you do when you steal a car like what do you part it out you send it to Africa there's got to be some criminal underbelly operating this where they steal the cars and then they chop them up or they do something with them little did I know you could just go on Facebook and sell it just like that right like it's like wow that's weird Facebook is that morally like Superior website that doesn't let you misgender somebody doesn't let you give a political opinion somebody doesn't agree with but you can sell stolen cars that's one of those things that blew my mind and I'm like wait how are they doing this out in the open right this is almost like uh when Craigslist had the back page which was for hookers we'll just say it Craigslist had a hooker thing that got shut down everyone was morally outraged that like women were trying to charge money for sex and guys were willing to do it and then next thing you know you could just go online and connect a to c right so that's what Facebook is doing right now with these groups that aren't just like oh there's like 12 people in them these groups up 70 000 people 30 000 people I mean that's filling the entire like giant Stadium right MetLife Arena whatever it's called with people buying selling or watching the buying and selling of stolen property right it's no it just look up no title cars for sale right what why would you have a title for your car right there are legitimate reasons but when you start going in these groups you can tell these legitimate reasons aren't accurate usually when even when I bought my Supra my Supra my uh not that one my 95. the woman didn't have the title so she didn't want my money yet she's like look I have to apply to get the title it was my father's car he passed away we don't know where the title is we have to applying another one that's legitimate reason why you don't have a title but you can get one there's a couple of ways to come up with a car without a title or equipment or whatever you have and the easiest way is to go steal it right and this is rampant but the problem is when you steal it it should be difficult to get rid of right you should have like these networks of chop shops or exporters or something like that instead you have these guys just like well just go sell it I'm like hey who's got some hellcats for sale I got five G's cash and how do you know the cars that are legitimately like been rotting in somebody's yard for 30 years I don't know who the title belongs to and like whatever if somebody wants this they can have it for parts and the people just selling stolen cars and or other felonies right because it's not just stealing cars a lot of people are saying there's a lien attached to it which means there's a bank that has the car hasn't been reported stolen because the bank can't report their lease stolen and you're behind in payments so what do you do sell it for 10 grand and say come looking for it because a bank has a repo process right if you don't pay your bank the bank puts out a repossession order on your car and you get guys trolling around in their tow trucks waiting to pick up that car as soon as you turn your head and they're going to take your car and go bye-bye and bring it back to the bank right they get paid by the Banks to do this but apparently according to these guys there's laws that prevent Banks from being able to report the car stolen because they know you have it right it's not only the person who is on the paperwork can report the car stolen now granted I've experienced this in the rental car world where I couldn't report a car stolen when I gave it to a renter because it's considered conversion but once they disable the tracking that that changes the dynamic and then like a report it's stolen so there's probably conditions in which you can report a car stolen but you go on these groups and you see there is no intention to like sort of skate it's the if you know you know sort of thing it's like hey I got guy there's guys on there that can make new titles and they're like well how do you register a car without a title it's like bro what are you talking about it's 2500 bucks we can get that mind-boggling now the fact that this is again trading out in the open and you've got guys on there washing titles and this is the same thing how do you get a stolen car registered if the VIN number is reported stolen well that's where they go buy VIN numbers off of other cars and they Vin swap the cars and then it turns out you're buying a car but how can you do this why would you do this like if you're buying it for a race track it's still committing a felony if you're buying a car from somebody for 30 cents on the dollar right if you're buying a 2020 Range Rover for 10 grand you know there's a problem with that you know somebody is committing a felony and now you're buying stolen property and it's absolutely mind-boggling to me that that this transpires out in the open if you want to be like that rookie cop that goes in and be like all right let me just uh let me try to make a name for myself just look at every top contributor in these groups top contributor top contributor top contributor that guy's probably worth arresting right like it or it's not hard to build a case on that person because that guy is at the center of this and the fact that it trades openly and it's becoming like an open market for for essentially and not drugs but essentially for selling stolen or uh Insurance fraudulent cars and when I say Insurance fraudulent I just made that up it is when somebody's defrauding their leasing company or their insurance company and selling a car imagine you have a car you're behind in payments you call it in and say hey somebody stole my car but they didn't really steal your car you're just going to sell it to some other guy with a title without the title because they're going to give you 10 grand your insurance company is going to pay off your loan your insurance kind of so you're either committing insurance fraud you're hiding it from the bank and selling it to somebody this is all bad news and the fact that Facebook lets this fly is mind-boggling to me like I understand if people have stolen stuff and they want to like Hush Hush sell it but that should be difficult not easy and that's where I take an issue with this like rookie cop that goes out and be like yo I just cleaned up 20 different people selling stolen goods and maybe they do right maybe the cops are actually like straw buyers or fake buyers of these things they've got 10 grand in cash they'll come buy your car and they're they're trying to get these guys this way and they're just making it easy on them I just don't see it because cars are still being stolen people are still defrauding leasing companies people are still defrauding insurance companies and it makes everything else more expensive for us right nobody feels bad for an insurance company nobody feels bad for a leasing company they've got all this money but you got to do things by the books and if you don't you got to know some skeezy guy where there's a probably a 90 chance he's just gonna rob you and take your money and walk away anyway and that's what a lot of these people do like hey yeah send me a deposit so I know you're real you send them five grand they disappear there's no car there's no title they're just defrauding you it's a very dangerous game to play I wouldn't want to buy stolen merchandise off of somebody because I think the risk factor is significantly higher but if you're scumbag dealing with scumbag then you're ready to shoot each other over this nonsense and Facebook makes that happen wow yeah so look again I just want to be as objective as possible is there a reason to have a no title vehicle or a no title car sure like is that the predominant use of these groups not from my experience hey uh how do you disable OnStar tracking in a car I mean these are the posts that are in there and I it's just do you know if you know you know Rob Peretti thank you for watching if you're looking to buy a stolen car or steal a car and sell it somewhere there you go I hit up Facebook they've got you covered oh\n"