How safe is Facebook Marketplace for PC purchases?

[CarthosChief]

I just saw a add in my local area of a guy selling a custom build with top teir parts. Amd 79503xd, radeon 7900xtx.....customer water loop through both, MSI x670e ace......like almost exactly what ive been planning to build. 

 

But how safe is it to consider purchasing something like this? Could it be stolen? How could i find that out? (In USA) 

 

Obviously id go see the maching and check it out before consideration, and id probly ask to buy it for 1500 to 2000 max (hes asking 3k) because its used and im taking a gamble. 

 

But im kinda fearful of it being stolen or something. I live in a military town, and this guy seems to be a very outdoors/active guy, so not a gamer or maybe he impulse purchased to get into gaming and didnt like it..... idk. 

 

 

 

Any advice? Id hate to miss a chance for a good deal. 

[Dedayog]

19 minutes ago, CarthosChief said:

I just saw a add in my local area of a guy selling a custom build with top teir parts. Amd 79503xd, radeon 7900xtx.....customer water loop through both, MSI x670e ace......like almost exactly what ive been planning to build. 

 

But how safe is it to consider purchasing something like this? Could it be stolen? How could i find that out? (In USA) 

 

Obviously id go see the maching and check it out before consideration, and id probly ask to buy it for 1500 to 2000 max (hes asking 3k) because its used and im taking a gamble. 

 

But im kinda fearful of it being stolen or something. I live in a military town, and this guy seems to be a very outdoors/active guy, so not a gamer or maybe he impulse purchased to get into gaming and didnt like it..... idk. 

 

 

 

Any advice? Id hate to miss a chance for a good deal. 

It's like anything you buy in person with no warranty and no way to contact the person after

 

What is the link to the item?  You can find out if it's stolen by calling the police and seeing if something like it was reported/filed police report.

 

I'd pass on this, as you can build it for just over $2k (without custom loop) and you don't need a 79650x3d for gaming at all.  

[BrandonLatzig]

There isn't much way to tell if its stolen until you get it and it has  a name that doesnt match up. Thought try and remember the older videos on LTT
Ask to see if it works before any money is given. You should at least know if it works before you buy it. If they refuse, no deal, period.

[Middcore]

How can anybody answer this question? It's as safe or as unsafe as the particular individual you choose to make a transaction with. You're asking us to make generalizations about masses of strangers. 

 

There are no protections if you get scammed, it's up to you to do your due diligence. You can leave marketplace feedback so if the seller has any, read it first. 

 

As for finding out if the stuff is stolen, you can't.

 

Beyond that all I can say is you seem to be stereotyping a bit that a person can't be into both gaming and outdoors recreation. You know Steve from Gamers Nexus is a mountain biking enthusiast?

[StarsMars]

1 hour ago, CarthosChief said:

I just saw a add in my local area of a guy selling a custom build with top teir parts. Amd 79503xd, radeon 7900xtx.....customer water loop through both, MSI x670e ace......like almost exactly what ive been planning to build. 

 

But how safe is it to consider purchasing something like this? Could it be stolen? How could i find that out? (In USA) 

 

Obviously id go see the maching and check it out before consideration, and id probly ask to buy it for 1500 to 2000 max (hes asking 3k) because its used and im taking a gamble. 

 

But im kinda fearful of it being stolen or something. I live in a military town, and this guy seems to be a very outdoors/active guy, so not a gamer or maybe he impulse purchased to get into gaming and didnt like it..... idk. 

 

 

 

Any advice? Id hate to miss a chance for a good deal. 

It's safer than craigslist ever was.

 

1. Check the sellers profile and see how long they've been on facebook. (if it's new, may be a red flag)

2. Ask them some questions about the item.

3. Meet in a public place.

4. Don't go alone. (especially for large cash transactions.)

5. I usually try and get their phone number before meeting up. The more info you have the better.

6. Have them let you test the system to make sure it's working. (Not crashing, bsod, ect)

7. If it's too good to be true, it is.

 

It's not 100% safe but you have a record of the facebook account of the person you bought from.

 

[dizmo]

If the price is better than what it'd cost for you to build by a fair margin, I'd probably buy it. $3k seems like a lot for what it is. With a used system I'd probably price it at least $800 off, as you're losing out on a lot of warranty. Keep in mind, with a custom loop you also have to hope that they had that build correctly. I'd personally never buy a custom loop used, unless you're fully willing to tear it all down and redo it to make sure it's done correctly.

 

Anything you buy from another person has the chance of being stolen. There's no way for you to know that. There's obvious signs; priced too cheap, you get there and he's a crackhead, etc etc. But other than that, nope.

 

You creeped his profile and are trying to base it off of that? That's ridiculous and gives you very little insight into the person as a whole. A lot of my friends mountain bike, hunt, swim, hike etc and have systems easily in excess of $5,000 at home. Very few people are going to take pictures of themselves sitting alone playing video games on a computer; not even my friends who play games 7 or 8 hours a day do that.

 

Don't be surprised if he won't let you see it running. I personally don't let people into my home to look at things I'm selling, regardless of the value. It's 2023. It's easy enough to send over a video of it functioning.

 

Honestly, with the questions you asked and worries you have, I'd probably just stick to buying new.

 

1 hour ago, Dedayog said:

It's like anything you buy in person with no warranty and no way to contact the person after

 

What is the link to the item?  You can find out if it's stolen by calling the police and seeing if something like it was reported/filed police report.

 

I'd pass on this, as you can build it for just over $2k (without custom loop) and you don't need a 79650x3d for gaming at all.  

Don't do that. That's a complete waste of their time and resources. The only time I'd do that is if you knew who it was stolen from, or knew it was stolen (aka crackhead and it's $400).

1 hour ago, Middcore said:

How can anybody answer this question? It's as safe or as unsafe as the particular individual you choose to make a transaction with. You're asking us to make generalizations about masses of strangers. 

 

There are no protections if you get scammed, it's up to you to do your due diligence. You can leave marketplace feedback so if the seller has any, read it first. 

 

As for finding out if the stuff is stolen, you can't.

 

Beyond that all I can say is you seem to be stereotyping a bit that a person can't be into both gaming and outdoors recreation. You know Steve from Gamers Nexus is a mountain biking enthusiast?

Haha, you basically said everything I wanted to say. Spot on.

[dizmo]

20 minutes ago, StarsMars said:

It's safer than craigslist ever was.

 

1. Check the sellers profile and see how long they've been on facebook. (if it's new, may be a red flag)

2. Ask them some questions about the item.

3. Meet in a public place.

4. Don't go alone. (especially for large cash transactions.)

5. I usually try and get their phone number before meeting up. The more info you have the better.

6. Have them let you test the system to make sure it's working. (Not crashing, bsod, ect)

7. If it's too good to be true, it is.

 

It's not 100% safe but you have a record of the facebook account of the person you bought from.

 

With #6 I'd suggest asking for it before hand via video. Also, with something this large, public meetups are probably a hassle and will lose you the purchase.

I sell PCs; I don't let anyone into my house. It's my space, not some place for randoms to come trouncing through.

[StarsMars]

4 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Also, with something this large, public meetups are probably a hassle and will lose you the purchase.

I sell PCs; I don't let anyone into my house. It's my space, not some place for randoms to come trouncing through.

So no public meeting and no private meeting. What option are you leaving?

[Dedayog]

8 minutes ago, dizmo said:

If the price is better than what it'd cost for you to build by a fair margin, I'd probably buy it. $3k seems like a lot for what it is. With a used system I'd probably price it at least $800 off, as you're losing out on a lot of warranty. Keep in mind, with a custom loop you also have to hope that they had that build correctly. I'd personally never buy a custom loop used, unless you're fully willing to tear it all down and redo it to make sure it's done correctly.

 

Anything you buy from another person has the chance of being stolen. There's no way for you to know that. There's obvious signs; priced too cheap, you get there and he's a crackhead, etc etc. But other than that, nope.

 

You creeped his profile and are trying to base it off of that? That's ridiculous and gives you very little insight into the person as a whole. A lot of my friends mountain bike, hunt, swim, hike etc and have systems easily in excess of $5,000 at home. Very few people are going to take pictures of themselves sitting alone playing video games on a computer; not even my friends who play games 7 or 8 hours a day do that.

 

Don't be surprised if he won't let you see it running. I personally don't let people into my home to look at things I'm selling, regardless of the value. It's 2023. It's easy enough to send over a video of it functioning.

 

Honestly, with the questions you asked and worries you have, I'd probably just stick to buying new.

 

Don't do that. That's a complete waste of their time and resources. The only time I'd do that is if you knew who it was stolen from, or knew it was stolen (aka crackhead and it's $400).

Haha, you basically said everything I wanted to say. Spot on.

Beg to disagree, as the police here in Atlanta have stated calling for that reason is something they suggest.   They also have Safe Trading areas at the station as well for people to buy and sell like this.  Maybe they're incorrect and just trying to save face, but that's what they've said.

[dizmo]

58 minutes ago, StarsMars said:

So no public meeting and no private meeting. What option are you leaving?

Doorstep.

55 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Beg to disagree, as the police here in Atlanta have stated calling for that reason is something they suggest.   They also have Safe Trading areas at the station as well for people to buy and sell like this.  Maybe they're incorrect and just trying to save face, but that's what they've said.

It really depends on the item. If it has a serial number, sure, if not you're pretty much SOL.

[Middcore]

If you call up the police and start talking about specific PC parts like "Yeah do you have a report that an MSI X670E Ace motherboard was stolen? " they're not going to have the slightest clue what you're talking about and if you speak in terms generic enough for them to understand you're going to get a "false positive" if anybody reported any computer equipment stolen anywhere in their jurisdiction recently (which someone will have). So either way you're no closer to easing your mind the stuff you're interested in wasn't stolen. Bugging the police for stuff like this is a waste of your time and theirs.

 

I wouldn't do business with anyone who wouldn't meet me in a public place. I don't see a big difference between them coming in your house and a doorstep dropoff, either way they now know where you live. 

 

Something I haven't seen mentioned yet, possibly because it may seem obvious, but don't send any stranger any form of payment before you have actually seen the item in person. 

 

I will say that in dozens of PC part transactions on Facebook, Craigslist, OfferUp, etc. over the past few years there were a total of two times someone may possibly have been trying to scam me. Once I sold an item and I guy gave me counterfeit $20 bills. However, I don't know if he knew they were counterfeit himself; I only found out when I tried to use one of them at a restaurant and the employee used one of those marker testers on it; they gave every visual appearance of being genuine. The other time I had someone try to give me a GTX 770 in a GTX 1070 box, but my impression of that person was that he didn't actually know anything about PC hardware and was may have gotten scammed himself from whoever sold the card to him. 

 

In the end, though, anyone who has a high level of anxiety about stuff like this should just buy everything new. 

[OhioYJ]

1 hour ago, StarsMars said:

It's safer than craigslist ever was.

It's not 100% safe but you have a record of the facebook account of the person you bought from.

I think the "facebook" thing is giving you a false sense of security... 

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, OhioYJ said:

I think the "facebook" thing is giving you a false sense of security... 

 

A facebook account may not be a fingerprint but it's a hell of a lot more info about who you're buying from than Craigslist ever gave you.

 

Is there stuff listed on marketplace by profiles that probably aren't legit? Yeah, sure. But they're often quite easy to spot. A profile name that sounds like some white guy but the profile pic is an Asian woman? Bit of a red flag. 

 

In this case it sounds like the seller has an open and quite active Facebook profile which gives every sign of being a real person, OP is just hung up on some sort of jocks-vs-nerds framework of the type of person who might have PC parts to sell. 

 

 

 

 

[Middcore]

A couple more maybe-obvious tips:

 

Ignore listings that only have the manufacturer's stock marketing photo of the product. Legit sellers will have pics of the actual item "in hand." Basically same rule as eBay here. (Of course a scammer could yoink a pic from somebody else's listing but that takes some effort so you can weed out the lazy scammers at least.)

 

Look at item descriptions to see whether the seller seems like they know what they're selling. If the whole description is the item's specs copied-and-pasted from the manufacturer site, it's probably because the "seller" just created a fake listing for an in-demand item they don't know jack about. 

[OhioYJ]

12 minutes ago, Middcore said:

A facebook account may not be a fingerprint but it's a hell of a lot more info about who you're buying from than Craigslist ever gave you.

To do what with? As you pointed out already just because it's on Facebook, doesn't mean it's a legitimate information? Or if it's on Marketplace, that you are even dealing with the owner of the item. Lots of proxy selling goes on through market place as many people don't have accounts to facebook.

 

On craigslist most of the time you have a phone number, which is likely just about as useful for authorities as a Facebook account? Craigslist has accounts and emails as well (Accounts make it easier to keep track of listings).

[Middcore]

7 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

On craigslist most of the time you have a phone number

Not really. Sellers can choose to only accept get contact by email, and craigslist obfuscates their real emails. You'll just get messages from addresses like "649313ae47933730bff2173232497c37@reply.craigslist.org".

 

Quote

Craigslist has accounts and emails as well (Accounts make it easier to keep track of listings).

It's not like craigslist is going to give you info on anybody's account if they scam you. A seller having a craigslist account doesn't tell you anything about who they are or aren't. It just tells you that they... use craigslist.

 

A Facebook profile doesn't guarantee someone is genuine and honest, of course, but it gives you a lot of basic checks you can use to spot potential frauds very quickly.

 

[KoeppColto024470]

Personally here's some tips from my experience

1. If they refuse to meet in a public place or ask you to come alone something shady is going on 

2.bring a friend or two especially when there's a large transaction on the line 

3.Never give any form of payment before verifying they actually have the product and that it works

4.If something is priced a lot cheaper then what you could build it for (a few grand) it's usually stolen or someone trying to rip you off and make some quick cash

5. Ask them questions about the components if they actually know what they're talking about it usually means they actually own it or at least know enough to sell it

6. Ask them what games they ran the system on 

7. This one might seem like a no brainer but ask why they're selling the system as I doubt it's for a upgrade since that PC is top spec

8. Never buy a custom loop used unless you verified everyhing was installed and sealed correctly

[kpluck]

Ask the seller if he has receipts for the equipment purchases. If the seller can't provide the receipts, move on.

 

-kp

[Rocketdog2112]

Jezze,

You people ever heard of receipts? If he ain't got them and your worried about it being stolen, pass on it.

[Middcore]

Asking to see receipts is a decent idea, although if someone actually bought stuff at brick-and-mortar retail and got a paper receipt it's doubtful they would save it. Or if they aren't the original owners themselves (I've bought parts secondhand and then resold them) it's highly unlike they would have a receipt. 

[Mark Kaine]

About zero safety. 

 

On 9/27/2023 at 9:32 PM, CarthosChief said:

I just saw a add in my local area of a guy selling a custom build with top teir parts. Amd 79503xd, radeon 7900xtx.....customer water loop through both, MSI x670e ace......like almost exactly what ive been planning to build. 

 

But how safe is it to consider purchasing something like this? Could it be stolen? How could i find that out? (In USA) 

 

Obviously id go see the maching and check it out before consideration, and id probly ask to buy it for 1500 to 2000 max (hes asking 3k) because its used and im taking a gamble. 

 

But im kinda fearful of it being stolen or something. I live in a military town, and this guy seems to be a very outdoors/active guy, so not a gamer or maybe he impulse purchased to get into gaming and didnt like it..... idk. 

 

 

 

Any advice? Id hate to miss a chance for a good deal. 

i mean, ok, but if its stolen how would that affect you... i mean besides being morally wrong of course. 

 

i get that this isnt something to take lightly, and i think i would think twice too, but it being stolen isnt actually a security risk?

 

unless the dude besides being a thief is also a snitch, i guess! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

 

 

On 9/27/2023 at 9:32 PM, CarthosChief said:

How could i find that out?

ask the police/military police?

 

 

that way you also have proof that you actually didn't want to buy stolen goods (although that makes *you* the snitch lmao, as said, there's zero safety in using facebook... for anything really )

 

 

[aminit]

On 9/27/2023 at 9:26 PM, StarsMars said:

It's safer than craigslist ever was.

 

1. Check the sellers profile and see how long they've been on facebook. (if it's new, may be a red flag)

2. Ask them some questions about the item.

3. Meet in a public place.

4. Don't go alone. (especially for large cash transactions.)

5. I usually try and get their phone number before meeting up. The more info you have the better.

6. Have them let you test the system to make sure it's working. (Not crashing, bsod, ect)

7. If it's too good to be true, it is.

 

It's not 100% safe but you have a record of the facebook account of the person you bought from.

 

This, I will also add that for relatively new items you might want to ask for receipts to see how they respond.

[Joombaly]

Certain stuff you can get a bargain for, if you know what you are looking for. Try not to get lured by tempting deals as they can often be scams and create a list of things to test before you buy. Ask them for a benchmark of the part to see if it performs up to par, description of the physical condition, exact model number etc. Always try to negotiate (worst they can say is no).

At times, you'll need you learn from you mistakes and move on.