Facebook Marketplace is an excellent tool to connect users looking to buy and sell goods. Unfortunately, it’s an equally good platform for scammers to take advantage of unsuspecting people. In northern Minnesota, law enforcement officials have even gotten involved trying to stop a hacker from selling fake Taylor Swift tickets.

The victim whose account has been hacked, Hailey Trautner, says the hacker has changed her account’s password and contact information. That means she can’t regain access to her account because Facebook can’t verify her identity. The bad actor behind the scam has posted recently that he or she is looking to sell tickets to a Taylor Swift concert this summer, requesting payment via PayPal or Zelle. Of course, the tickets have never arrived in the victim’s inbox. Police have turned over the hacker’s email information linked to PayPal to Facebook, but they caution that the best way to avoid scams like this is to simply be more careful with who you’re dealing with on the social media platform.

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Polk County Sheriff’s Office investigator Justin Swang said. “If you’re contacting somebody who is saying that they’re local, and they’re not willing to meet in person for a purchase or anything like that, there’s probably a pretty good reason. Because it’s a scam.”

Indeed, after you’ve given money to hackers like this, the odds that you ever see it again are unbelievably low. Thankfully, it’s relatively easy to steer clear of them altogether.

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