Are Facebook Marketplace sofas under £400 including delivery likely to be genuine?

[peeterable]

has anyone bought a new sofa of Facebook market place?

They have lovely L shaped large sofas and if you enquire about the price they're less than £400, including delivery, cash on delivery.

It's so much cheaper than else where I cant figure out the catch.

No website so no reviews, but also no upfront payment.

so whats the catch?

its a scam. They will ask you to pay for insurance or a delivery fee upfront and never deliver the item. The fake items include everything from sofas, to beds, to garden sets

@Netzilla they specificaly said no upfront payment

I have seen some sold on Facebook, you get a sofa and pay on delivery but they look a lot cheaper and crappier than the ones listed. But if its no payment up front its likely to be one of these ones. Ive seen the ad versus what you get and I wouldn't pay £50 for it but I think they rely on people taking the delivery handing over the cash and then realising later it doesnt look a whole lot like the advertised one.

It may be real. But run!!! Talking from experience. Don't fall for it. It's made with very cheap material and you'll be left with trash that you have to pay your council to get rid of after a few weeks. Unless you don't intend to sit on it. And regardless of what they tell you, there's zero customer service after.

As my dad always says, if something looks too good to be true it probably is….

They will deliver it to you all wrapped up in tons of plastic and refuse to unwrap it for you as it’s not part of the service. They’ll be in a hurry as they have more to deliver. You’ll pay them, start unwrapping the sofa and realise it’s not what you ordered. Parts don’t fit together, there’s no padding on the frame, the seat pads are thin and fall through. You call the driver back who says they’ll come and collect it tomorrow. Now you don’t believe them and start checking your order emails, there’s an online chat, they respond to you and apologise, say they’ll sort it. Then they stop responding so you start checking addresses, company details, companies house. You never hear from them again and have a completely unusable sofa. Ask me how I know…

Aptly described. I hope OP doesn't get to learn this from her own experience when she has ours for free 😄

They use pictures of genuinely nice furniture and deliver you a fake version. Happened to my colleague, and when she tried to get it sorted the seller vanished.

that makes sense, thank you! ill look up pictures of the crappy ones

Op if you want a cheap but decent new sofa you can't do better than IKEA imo

Honestly my best sofa that was a bargain was second hand. Someone used it as an occasional sofa in their conservatory. It lasted me 6 years and cost £150, when I got rid of it this year it was still ok but I needed something more supportive and the back support wasnt there.

If I didnt have much money and wanted a sofa I would look second hand on places like gumtree

@ladygindiva I looked at Ikea but the one I liked was almost £2k. I am happy with second hand but there are also many scams

You will likely get what you paid for it will be a cheap sofa.

We got good pretty cheap sofas from Argos years ago and still going strong. At least it's a proper company.

There are tons of second hand sofas going for very little or free on FB - you’ll be better off getting one of these. If you want new just get a Dfs one on a long term finance 0% deal.

The ones on FB that are new are 100% scams. Someone I know got one and it’s really not worth a fraction of what they paid!

I never understood how people part with money for a sofa they’ve never sat on. I can’t imagine taking delivery of a sofa that’s not comfortable to me and being stuck with it (regardless of the price).
Try looking in local charity furntire shops. You can get some decent options. Or genuine marketplace listings for second hand. You could always ask to pop round to have a look at it first.

thank you, I'm going to avoid!