SCAM ALERT: I was trying to sell a mattress box-spring set on Facebook Marketplace, and I just dodged a scammer using a trick I hadn’t seen before. A short thread follows 🧵 1/7 
First clue: the person contacted me by Facebook Messenger but their FB profile was completely blank - no pic, no biographical info, nothing other than a name. Not a 100% dealbreaker, but kinda suspicious. 2/7
Second clue: they asked me to text their phone rather than using Facebook Messenger - again, not a 100% lock for scammer, but a red flag. 3/7
The scam is simple and I can totally see people falling for this: They have no interest in what I’m selling, they’re just trying to harvest / use my phone number to scam others. 4/7
The whole “let me send you a 6-digit number for my safety and then call you” thing is the trick - what they’re really doing is trying to create a Google Voice account using my phone number. 5/7
Their desired outcome: Google sends their 6-digit confirmation number to me, I read it back to the scammer, and now Google believes that my number belongs to the scammer, so they can now use my phone number to scam other people. Simple and devious! 6/7
Hope this thread helps someone else avoid a scam like this 7/7
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