4 Terrifying Facebook Marketplace & Craigslist Horror Stories
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What are the common uses for Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist?
Most people use Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for ordinary reasons. They need a couch. They need a crib. They need to clear out a garage before moving day. Most of the time, the exchange lasts less than 10 minutes. A few messages, an address, cash, and both people go home. But these sites and apps depend on one risky thing. Trust between strangers who know almost nothing about each other. The four stories in this episode all begin with a simple listing, a generator, a nursery set, an arcade cabinet, a free sectional, and in each case the person answering that listing was not interested in a normal sale. Story 1. The Generator In September of 2021, Tyler Mercer was 37 and living outside Redding, California.
He worked as an electrician, had a nine-year-old son every other week, and was behind on two payments for the truck he needed for work. That month, after another fire season filled with smoke and outages, Tyler decided to sell the backup generator he had bought the year before. It was a heavy red Honda model that could run refrigerators, lights, and a well pump. He listed it on Craigslist for $1,400. By Friday afternoon, he had received 11 messages. Nine were low offers. One was obvious spam. The last one was from a man named Seth Holcomb. who said he would pay the full amount in cash that weekend. He said his family's walnut orchard south of Cottonwood had lost power twice in a month and he needed a generator strong enough to keep the pump running if it happened again.
He asked two questions only. Did it start on the first pull and could Tyler prove it would hold a load? Tyler wrote back and said yes to both, but he wanted to meet in a public place. Seth answered within a minute. He said that would not work. The generator weighed more than 200 pounds. He was already on the orchard property repairing irrigation lines, and he needed to see it running on the pump before handing over that much cash. He sent his phone number and asked Tyler to call if he wanted to talk it through. The voice on the phone matched the messages. Seth sounded patient. He sounded local. He knew the names of side roads and feed stores in the area. He said he had another worker on the property to help lift the machine, and he said Tyler would be back on the highway in less than half an hour.
Nothing in the conversation gave Tyler a firm reason to say no. He still took one small step. He texted his sister, Jenna, the address Seth had sent, and told her that if she did not hear from him by 5.30, she should call. On Saturday, Tyler loaded the generator into the bed of his truck, strapped it down, and left around 4 o'clock. The address Seth had sent led to a rural road lined with orchards and dry grass. The first gate matched the pin, but when Tyler got there, he found a chain across it and a new message from Seth. Main gate stuck, used the service road on the east side, white pickup by the pump house, The service road was narrower. It cut between two rows of trees and ended near a square concrete building with peeling paint and a rusted metal roof.
A white Ford pickup was parked next to it. A tall man in a tan work shirt waved as Tyler pulled in. A younger man in a gray sweatshirt stood by the open side door of the building. The older man said he was Seth. The younger man was his nephew, Cole. Both men looked ordinary. Their clothes were dusty. Their boots were wet near the soles. There was a long black hose coiled near the pump house and a toolbox open on the ground. The scene matched what Seth had described closely enough that Tyler shut off his truck and got out. At first, the meeting followed the usual pattern. Seth asked a few questions about oil changes and hours of use. Cole climbed into the truck bed to look at the frame and cereal plate.
Seth said he wanted to hear it run before he counted out the cash. Tyler agreed. Together the three men lowered the generator onto a dolly and rolled it inside the pump house. The building was larger than it looked from the road. The front room held an old pump, a workbench, and shelves filled with tools.
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