Victims warn other users of Facebook scam
MOORE, Okla. (KFOR) — A Facebook scam is going around on the platform. Victims want you to be aware and not fall for it.
If you type in the search bar on Facebook "We are conducting a sale," you will likely see numerous posts of people selling items after a tragedy.
"They honestly thought I was in a predicament," said Heather Grive.
Grive is back on Facebook after fighting hackers for over a month.
She said she rarely gets on social media and believes that may be why she was a target.
Grive suspected something was wrong when her friends started texting her.
"Some were, 'I think you were hacked' or 'Hey, I'm interested in this product,'" said Chris Grive, her husband.
While locked out of her account, a hacker posted a sad story, under her name, about a family member and said she needed to sell their stuff.
"That my uncle had died and I was going to be out of town for a few days, and if they could go ahead and send me a deposit, I'll hold the item for them," said Heather.
The items listed for sale include nice cars for only a few thousand dollars, construction equipment, wave runners, lawn equipment, and PlayStations.
"A friend of mine specifically asked if I was selling my $3,000 Peloton for $400. And I was like, 'No,'" said Heather.
A wide variety of hobbies for Grive's uncle, who passed away more than a decade ago.
"This introduction is pretty much word for word," said Teresa Davis. "And the prices on these things are really good. They're so tempting!"
Davis nearly fell for the same scam after a different person's Facebook account was hacked.
"She had a generator for sale. And it was like, a third of what we would pay for it," said Davis.
Davis tried to pay her friend on multiple payment apps. Thankfully, the apps flagged the transaction as a possible scam, or it was declined.
When Davis offered to pay her friend in person, she was met with a curt reply that was unlike her friend of 50 years.
"She said, 'I told you in my post that I'm out of town,'" said Davis.
That's when it clicked for Davis, and she gave her friend a call.
"She said, 'This has been going on for 36 hours. We have done everything we can to try to get this post pulled down,'" said Davis.
Davis and the Grives said that it is the problem. After multiple flags and reports, they claim Facebook would not take the posts down.
"I reported more than 50 of them, and every one of them, Facebook came back and said, 'We can't do anything about it,'" said Davis.
"Facebook would respond with, 'This is not a fraudulent thing,'" said Heather.
They believe the problem is that these are legitimate Facebook accounts posting the ads, although the real user is locked out.
Grive said she and her children tried every day for a month to get back into her account. Unfortunately, the hacker had changed all of her contact information, including what's needed for two-step authorization.
Sometimes, the Grive's efforts would come close.
"Within seconds it was like, ‘That code’s not active,’" said Chris Grive.
The Grives said that as soon as a family member or friend would tag Heather in a post, alerting others to the scam, they were immediately blocked.
"I don’t know if it’s someone sitting behind a computer doing this or a computer-generated program," said Chris Grive.
The Grives and Davis believe that if there were a way to talk to a human representative, instead of links or report buttons, they could've saved friends who are unfortunately now dealing with fraud charges after trying to help a person in need.
"I do wish that Facebook would make it a lot easier to contact them when something fraudulent like this happens," said Heather Grive.
News 4 reached out to Facebook's media team early Thursday afternoon. We asked if the team was aware of the scam and if there is a way to contact a representative if they are not receiving the help they need. We did not hear back.