I was almost human-trafficked by scammers on Facebook Marketplace
A photographer’s stubbornness on Facebook Marketplace may well have saved her from being abducted by strangers and trafficked just yards from her workplace.
Mallie Taylor was offloading some free autumn and winter decor using the platform when one supposed buyer started rubbing her up the wrong way.
Despite the woman specifying in her listing that the items were “pick up only”, the buyer, who claimed to be a mom 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”.
Taylor, from Canberra, reminded her it was “pick up only”, with her annoyance heightened further when the woman offered to pay a $5 delivery free.
“PICK UP ONLY,” Taylor reminded her once again.
The woman still, however, refused to pick the items up from the pickup location, and asked if Taylor would meet her at a bus stop.
“I will come please keep for me,” she begged in another message, before requesting Taylor to “please send me a number”.
Just 15 minutes later, she had a change of heart and told her: “I’m not coming.”
About two hours later again though, she changed her mind once more, saying: “Hello dear I will come now” and asking to have Taylor’s 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 showing me 24 minutes drive,” she wrote.
Taylor wasn’t in the least persuaded by the woman’s story, firmly telling her she would not be coming to the bus.
“I’m not meeting you at the bus stop. I’ve left already. It’s a business,” Taylor wrote.
The woman was somehow still confused, asking her whether the pickup location was a house or a business.
When told, for a second time, it was a shop, she asked, “How will I get?”
Taylor, remaining firm on her stance, told her if she wanted the items, there would be other people at the shop until 4:30 pm.
The woman continued to argued her case, telling Taylor 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.
Taylor shared her experience with other Marketplace users and was quickly informed the woman’s behavior 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.
“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.”
Taylor 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, Taylor 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.