Buy or sell something via Marktplaats? Do not become a victim of scams. Because scammers come up with everything from fake shipping labels, to fake ticks, these are currently the most common tricks of fraudsters in a row.
1. Withdraw money from your ABN-AMRO account
First of all, a fairly new trick where warn the police† In this type of scam, the perpetrator asks you to click on a link for verification. Do not do this! By clicking on the link, you give the perpetrator the chance to log in to the banking app.
The offender must then enter an identification code in the app and enter his own telephone number there. After that, the scammer can immediately withdraw money from your account at a Geldmaat. Victims receive a text message that a new phone number has been added.
ABN AMRO is currently the only bank where you can withdraw debit card and cardless money from Geldmaat ATMs. It is likely that more banks and ATMs will offer this option in the future.
2. Instant Crossing Service
In 2020, Marktplaats introduced the Equal Crossing Service (GOS) option. This option is supposed to make buying and selling products safer, but smart scammers abuse it. Buyer and seller agree to use the CIS. Instead of paying, the buyer sends a fake SMS to the seller, which seems to come from Marktplaats. The SMS confirms that the payment has been made to the CIS. As a seller, do not rely on this SMS. Always check the status on Marktplaats itself. With such a fake SMS from a rogue buyer, this will remain on ‘unpaid’.
3. Seller lives far away
The seller offers the option ‘Shipping or Collection’ in their ad. The pick-up location is a Wadden Island, which can only be reached by boat. Still send it then? The package never arrives. In addition, savvy scammers will only respond to offers from buyers who are a considerable distance from their own ‘hometown’.
4. Tikkie
Another form of fraud that appears is the cheating of login details for bank accounts via a Tikkie (a payment request). It goes like this: a potential buyer reports to you, the seller. The buyer asks for your phone number to send you a WhatsApp message. He or she then says that he or she has had bad experiences with Marktplaats in the past. That is why this person would like confirmation that you can be trusted. To prove this, he asks you to transfer 0.01 euros via Tikkie. The link you then get is very similar to a real link from Tikkie. But if you click on it, you will be redirected to a fake site. If you enter your bank details there, the buyer will receive it.
5. A PostNL shipping label
Looks like the trick above, but instead of a payment they ask to arrange a shipping label from PostNL. Mainly aimed at sellers. The fake buyer reports via WhatsApp or SMS and wants to do business. To confirm that, they only ask to request a shipping label via PostNL. As proof that you are really going to send. They will send a link for that label, if you click on it you will see this screen:
If you click on it, you will not go to the banking app, but a screen will follow that resembles the MijnING internet banking environment
That looks real, but is fake, because while you log in, the scammers are watching. So they have to grab your credentials to log in. This is followed by an extra authorization screen with additional questions about date of birth and bank card numbers. With that data, the scammers quickly install a new internet banking app on their own mobile phone and they can do their thing. The screens are deceptively real, but the bank will never ask for such details. The fact that a payment function does not directly open the app on the mobile phone, but refers to something that resembles mijnING is also suspicious. Are you a victim? Contact the emergency number of the bank immediately, this is also possible outside office hours, because these scammers are active just then. Sometimes the bank can still block the account in time.
Want to know more about this trick? It program Scammed paid more attention to it.
6. Identity Theft
Never send a photo of your proof of identity, bank statement or bank card to a seller or buyer if they request it. A buyer may, for example, ask that because he wants to check whether you are reliable. Don’t fall for it. Not even if the other party sends a copy first. This puts you at great risk of becoming a victim of identity fraud.
7. ‘You get your money back’
You have been scammed. You have transferred money, but have not received a product. The cheeky scammer will send you a message giving you two options. Option 1: You get your money back, minus twenty euros. Just see that as ‘learning fee’ is stated in the message. Option 2: You file a report and join the back of the queue, along with thousands of other victims. The police recommend that you always file a report in this case. How can you avoid falling victim to this trick? Read this article.
8. Counterfeit money
The police regularly warn against counterfeit money. Especially with products that cost several hundred euros, you run the risk of getting counterfeit money instead of real money. When paying cash, always take the time to inspect banknotes for authenticity. In this article you can read what the visible and ‘invisible’ features of a banknote are.
9. Robbery
It happens about four to five times a month, according to the police: a Marktplaats robbery. It happened to a woman from Helmond in 2019, for example. She had put a Rolex watch on Marktplaats. A man would come and collect it from her house. The saleswoman got a gun to her head in her house and the man took off with the watch without paying. How do you prevent such a thing? Meet in a public, crowded place, police say RTLZ†
10. Print screen
A buyer sends a print screen that shows that he or she has transferred money to you. The product has the buyer. ‘Can’t you send it to me?’, they ask. “After all, it’s already been paid.” Not so. Such a ‘screenshot’ can easily be copied in a program such as Photoshop. You send the product, but you never receive the payment. You prevent this by really only sending the product when the payment is on your account.
Avoid getting scammed? Read these tips.
Source: Consumers Association
