IMPORTANT: Beware of online scams from Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist and OfferUp

[BenM]

Good afternoon all.

I wanted to bring something to everyone's attention, something that I was exposed to just last week when I was trying to sell an offset smoker on the sites mentioned above

Beware of scammers. One of their new tricks is to contact you about the item you have for sale and then ask for your phone number to "prove you are a human being and not a scammer." They then send you a text called Google Voice which auto-generates a Google Voice Code. They want you to send the code back to them via text to "prove you are not a scammer." THAT'S the scam. That code should NEVER be given to ANYONE. If you do, they then have 100% access to your phone. So if you use a 2-step authorization for your bank, credit cards, shopping sites, etc., they can see your text messages just as easily as you can. DO NOT fall for this. Just delete them and block them ASAP.

Hope this helps.

 

[Brett-EDH]

this has been going on for years. i like to play with them and give them fake codes. they get mad real easy.

 

[BenM]

this has been going on for years. i like to play with them and give them fake codes. they get mad real easy.

LOVE IT!

 

[Lew Newby]

Thanks for the heads up. Much appreciated.

 

[DanHoo]

 

[Joe Anshien]

I actually fell for this one some time ago. In researching it they want your cell phone # to get a Google voice # (hence the code) to run other scams. I freaked out, changed all my passwords then it luckily turned into a non issue because my # was already a Google Voice # so it could not be used to get another one. Anyway that's what I found. There could always be more to it. I am usually smarter spotting scams, but I did get caught on this one and did loose some sleep. Good warning.

 

[Jason Godard]

My mind went immediately to the Spaceballs combo as well.