Why buying stuff on FB Marketplace in Australia is awesome! (Usually)
We buy lots of bike parts & bikes on FB. Marketplace for our little bicycle enterprise. We have to… It’s the only way to get matching parts for customers who need specific bits for their builds/bikes, as well as parts for our own builds.
It’s an absolute life saver… & unlike a lot of the rest of FB… we love it! We just pop the money into some random strangers account & they post an item to us.
What the?… Yes, we buy stuff sight unseen by depositing money into a random strangers account all the time… trust the seller to post the item after we have paid them.
We’ve met heaps of people this way & made lots of friends.
Australia must be one of the few countries in the world where this is possible… Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi 
As long as we follow a few simple rules, everything’s going to work out great. (usually)
Have we deposited money in a sellers account, then the order has gone wrong?… Or then found out the seller was dodgy? Sure have!
But these sorts of experiences are few & far between… So few that they barely even rate a mention.
If you read this & think… I was ripped off on FB Marketplace, so this is BS… I say this: That sux, & I feel for you!
Statistically speaking sh*t happens (sometimes). Statistically it might even happen twice in a row, or the 1st time you make a purchase. That really sux!!
Here’s our little list of simple rules we use before buying something off a random stranger on FB Marketplace through a bank deposit:
-Buy off a seller with an account that’s at least 3 years old. If the item is more than a few bucks, get the sellers phone number before deposit &… speak to the seller before purchase & ask lots of questions.
– Ask for extra photos of items as often as you feel like it. Don’t worry about being annoying, if you miss out… just buy the next one that comes up.
– Don’t follow through if there’s even a fleas whisker of doubt in your mind about the seller’s legitimacy.
– If it’s too good to be true, it usually is.
– Don’t ever give a deposit for the seller to hold the item.
– Remember that there’s always another seller with another item & your life won’t fall apart if you miss out on the purchase.
That’s it! Will following these rules result in occasionally missing out on something legit because the seller doesn’t fit the criteria? Yep 
But on the bright side you’ll almost never get jipped, or by something stolen or dodgey 
In 100’s & 100’s of purchases over 6 or 7 years we’ve had only a couple of things go awry… Mostly because the seller was a plum, or because we didn’t follow our own rules closely enough 
Like the time someone boxed a bike for us with no padding… Or the occasional item being rougher than expected… Or something not working properly. To the best of my recollection we’ve always received our item in some form
However…
We’ve had more bad experiences per number of purchases with legit Australian businesses selling stuff we need than we have with FB Marketplace sellers
Hope your FB Marketplace hunt for parts is going well & your’re finding lot’s of bargains