Scammers and digital thieves are now targeting unsuspecting Facebook merchants in a trend that has seen many sought the assistance of the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force.
Online scamming is nothing new, however, to many sellers in Saint Lucia, the sophistication as to how it is carried out might be foreign.
“The scammer attempted to have me use a payment app but, on the day of delivery, I was to meet the person but the money was never transferred to my account”, one merchant recounted on Facebook. “I never showed up.”
The merchant went on to recount countless private messages of abuse by the buyer with a promise to make the individual “pay.”
The general consensus on social media is that many people fall prey to shady individuals posing as legitimate customers but, the sole intention is to rob the seller of the item for sale.
One seller who was not so lucky remembered being robbed of his items and barely escaping with his life. “They robbed me right by the square,” he posted. “They recognized me from my photos online but I couldn’t make any of them out because I only realised the account they used was fake”.