Photographer’s scary trafficking ordeal sparks Facebook Marketplace warning

A woman has recalled coming dangerously close to a possible abduction through a message exchange with a person who found her on Facebook Marketplace.

A photographer’s stubbornness on Facebook Marketplace may well have saved her from being abducted by strangers and trafficked just metres from her workplace.

A Canberra woman, who wished to remain anonymous, was offloading some free autumn and winter decor using the platform when one supposed buyer started rubbing her up the wrong way.

Despite her specifying in her listing that the items were “pick up only”, the buyer, who claimed to be a mum of two young children, persistently asked to be met somewhere more convenient.

Screenshots of the exchange, shared with news.com.au, showed the buyer initially asking for the decor to be delivered, arguing “I have no car [and] it’s only eight minutes drive”.

The woman reminded her it was “pick up only”, with her annoyance heightened further when the buyer offered to pay a $5 delivery free.

“PICK UP ONLY,” she reminded her once again.

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The buyer did not want to pick up the items.

She begged the woman to meet at the bus stop.

The buyer still however refused to pick the items up from the pick up location, and asked to be met at a bus stop.

“I will come please keep for me,” she begged in another message, before requesting the woman “please send me a number”.

Just 15 minutes later, she had a change of heart and told her: “I’m not come”..

About two hours later again though, she changed her mind once more, saying: “Hello dear I will come now” and asking to have a number because she claimed to not have internet.

She claimed she would not be able to wait because she planned to bring her two kids on the bus.

“Bus timing is show me 24 minutes drive,” she wrote.

The woman wasn’t in the least persuaded by the woman’s story, firmly telling her she would not be coming to the bus.

She changed her mind several times before deciding not to collect the items.

“I’m not meeting you at the bus stop. I’ve left already. It’s a business,” she wrote.

The woman was somehow still confused, asking her whether the pick up location was a house or a business.

When told, for a second time, it was a shop, she asked, “How will I get?”

The woman, remaining firm on her stance, told her if she wanted the items, there would be other people at the shop until 4.30pm.

The buyer continued to argue her case, telling the woman she had a two-year-old and six-month-old and “that’s why”.

“Dear I will come please wait for me OK I’m in the bus stop OK,” she wrote, before again changing her story and saying she’s not coming because her baby was crying.

The woman shared her experience with other Marketplace users and was quickly informed the woman’s behaviour was consistent with a common trafficking tactic.

“Once it was pointed out to me by multiple people that this was a know method of human traffickers, I felt sick to my stomach,” she told news.com.au.

The woman was asked to meet the buyer at a bus stop near her workplace. Picture: Google Maps

“I was so glad that I held my ground in making the items pick up only, because I had my co-workers there.

“Coming that close to such a dangerous situation makes you second guess how safe you actually are.”

She was relieved her stubbornness came in clutch when she needed it the most.

She added it was “ridiculous” how hard the woman was pushing to have her meet at the bus stop, and it was fortunate her boss was happy with her “refusing to make an exception”.

“Thank goodness I can be as stubborn as I am,” she said.

Since the ordeal, she has been extra vigilant about who she deals with on Marketplace.

“I am now wary to post anything on Marketplace, and if I was to come across this again, I would know immediately to not entertain whoever is on the other end of the messages,” she said.

Originally published as Photographer’s scary trafficking ordeal sparks Facebook Marketplace warning