The free stuff scam setup

You’re on Facebook Marketplace or a Freebie App or similar and you see a post: “Free piano give away from my sister. If interested, please drop a message. Thanks.” It’s posted by someone named “Becca” and when you message the person, you get a someone plausible explanation:

My sister is downsizing and looking to give this away to any lover of pianos who really cares to have it. Kindly email her at sandrasanchez9120@gmail.com to indicate your interest. Her name is Sandra. Thanks.

Quote from Facebook marketplace

Hint number 1: Redirection

Ok, the English itself is pretty awkward, but lots of people rush and make mistakes, and depending on the area English might not be their first language. And “Grand Baby Piano” is definitely off. Also, that baby grand looks like it’s in great shape and would easily be $8-10k. Surely someone could get a consignment shop to take it for free and sell it…

But the first clue is that you’re being redirected off the platform to an email of someone other than the original poster.

Hint number 2: Google the contact info

Scammers have disposable email addresses and such, but they’re not likely to have a unique email for every attempt, so it’s likely that a Google search will turn up results for the scam.

Hint number 3: Reverse image search

This isn’t a guarantee always, but generally scam listings haven’t even bothered to get original photos for their scam. Putting our image in Google Image Search found an eBay listing.

What’s the trick, then?

This is likely to be a phishing scam. Since you’re not planning on paying anything for the item, an advance fee scam probably wouldn’t be all that successful. However, at some point, you’ll be asked to reply with a confirmation code sent to your phone or email to “confirm you are real”. That’s likely a password reset code and turning that code over will give the scammer access to whatever account that code was triggered from. At best, you might lose control of your social media account. At worst, you could lose control of your phone or email and that opens the floodgates for breaking into financial accounts.

How to know free stuff isn’t likely a scam

There are lots of upright pianos that are in decent shape that make sense to give away. They would take forever to sell, are heavy and expensive to ship, and don’t command much resale (unless a fairly new piano). TVs more than a couple of years old are likely to be legit freebies, too, because they’re unlikely to net the seller more than $100 after shipping or all day at a yard sale. Lots of heavy items worth less than $1000 also are potential legit freebies. A 5 year old treadmill may be worth several hundred dollars, but it’s also several hundred pounds and requires a bit of knowledge to maintain.