I have bought things from Marketplace before, and you never expect you’ll be the person getting scammed.
10:47, 25 Oct 2025Updated 10:51, 25 Oct 2025
Danielle has reported the incident to the police(Image: Danielle Pickett)
A woman was scammed by someone on Facebook Marketplace who then threatened to make her life a “living hell”. The saga began when Danielle Pickett put her iPhone up for her sale.
She thought she had been chatting to a woman about the sale, who told her that her son would visit her house to pick up the phone and give her the money. The man who appeared on her doorstep appeared to have legitimate confirmation of the funds being sent to Danielle’s account.
As the MEN reports, Danielle messaged the buyer the following day as she had not got the money. She was assured that it wasn’t a scam, with the account user promising to return to her home the following morning to “sort it as soon as possible”.
By Monday (October 20), the money had still not been sent, prompting Danielle to probe the situation further. Conversations continued on Facebook Messenger, with the buyer writing: “Keep acting smart and I will not go to your home address.”
When Danielle stated she would be contacting the police, the account then told her: “You do whatever you want, just remember I know where you live and I will make your life a living hell.”
She later took to social media, sharing home CCTV footage of the man appearing at her house on an e-scooter. She also shared an image of the £400 bank transfer confirmation showed to her at her doorstep – later suspected to have been fake.
She claims to have also been contacted by a number of other victims who said they recognised him from her post saying the same has happened to them.
Speaking to the MEN, Danielle, who is from Oldham, said: “He first messaged using a woman’s profile asking about the phone, and I followed it up on Sunday. We agreed 2pm, and the ‘woman’ said she would be sending her son over.
“He’s obviously arrived and checked the phone over, was happy, and did the transfer. I am usually quite open to spotting a scam, but it looked genuine. He showed me his screen which indicated the payment had been sent and there was a reference number.
“We were stood at the door for ages and no payment had come through, but I had seen confirmation with a reference so I felt safe. He seemed trustworthy and legitimate.”
The man turned up on her doorstep on an e-scooter(Image: Danielle Pickett)
Overnight the £400 payment for the iPhone, which was listed by Danielle on Facebook Marketplace, still failed to land in her bank account. She reached out to the account, named Megan, who insisted they had called the bank and would return to pay in cash the following morning if not resolved.
By Monday, two days after the marketplace exchange, Danielle then reached out again and was told by the buyer that they would visit at around 11am ‘on the dot’ – however they still didn’t show.
“I don’t work in the banks but if you don’t believe me, that’s your own business,” the buyer said. When Danielle then threated to call the police, they responded: “You call whoever you want this is a civil matter do you not understand this? Keep acting smart I will not go to your home address.”
Danielle said: “I had started to get sceptical as he told me he banked with Nationwide, and I realised the confirmation page for payment looked really different. I had a feeling I’d been done over.
“I felt really uneasy but was told they’d come and sort it out. Then he just turned, making threats. I said if he wasn’t going to bother coming then I’d tell the police and share it on social media to stop him doing it to other people.
“That’s when he started saying that now he knew where I lived and that he could make my life a living hell. It’s a personal threat that invaded my safe space and my home.
“It’s unsettling, and I shouldn’t have to feel like that. For a man I don’t know to know my name and address and to send a message like that makes me feel on edge. I am tough, but it still made me feel uneasy.
“I have my three dogs here and my home is my pride and joy. My car is on the drive. It’s the unknown of whether he would come back or actually take it further. It’s scary to think about.”
The ‘successful’ £400 payment that never reached Danielle’s bank account(Image: Danielle Pickett)
Following the incident, Danielle said she has been contacted by multiple women, claiming they were also targeted by the same man in the Chadderton area.
She called Greater Manchester Police and made a complaint after claiming no officers came out to speak to her within two days and told her to ‘call 999’ instead if she was in danger.
Danielle added: “When he made the threats to me, I knew I needed to log it with the police. I phoned them and they essentially just asked if I was in danger. I explained he made a threat towards me that he’d make my life hell and knew where I lived, they just suggested that I call 999 if anything does happen.
“They asked if I wanted to speak to victim support without really asking about anything that happened, about any evidence I had, what he looked like. I was told an agent would be in touch but nobody has. Nothing was immediate.
“It seems he just keeps getting away with it. This is still a crime, I know it’s not as serious, but I am determined to get to the bottom of who this guy is.
The messages with the buyer, thought to be using a fake account(Image: Danielle Pickett)
“I have bought things from Marketplace before, and you never expect you’ll be the person getting scammed. Sometimes we are just too trusting. I am so set on getting to the bottom of who this guy is, and he has messed with the wrong person now. I learnt the hard way.”
Greater Manchester Police confirmed a complaint was submitted to them. It’s understood the crime report is being allocated to an officer to investigate.
Meta, which owns Facebook, said the platform has launched a number of ‘anti-scam features’ this year. Verification checkpoints are put in place for accounts engaging in suspicious behaviour picked up by the social media site, which they must pass to continue using Marketplace.
Marketplace Messenger also filters messages from accounts that have suspicious elements into a spam folder using behaviour tools and message data signals to pick out risky accounts. Sellers will not be notified about these messages.
Facebook urges sellers or buyers to check if the profile of the other person appears new or incomplete, as this could be a sign that the account has been set up for scamming, check reviews of the online sellers to see what previous customers have said and insist on meeting in a public place to view the product before completing a transaction. Payment options with strong protections like PayPal are also advised.