A buyer overpaid me by mistake and wants a refund, is that real?

Treat it as fraud until proven otherwise. Real buyers rarely overpay by accident, and payment screenshots or confirmation emails are not proof of a completed, irreversible payment. The original payment (often a bad check or a stolen-card transfer) frequently reverses days after you've already sent back the 'refund' in real money.

I already sent the refund and the original payment bounced, what now?

Contact your bank immediately to report the fraud, though recovery is not guaranteed — average reimbursement rates for these scams are around 47%. File a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and report the buyer's profile to Facebook.

Facebook Marketplace Overpayment Scam: "Mistake" (2026)

The rule that stops this scam: never treat a screenshot, email, or verbal confirmation as proof of payment. Check your own account directly, and never trust an "accidental" overpayment enough to refund it before the original transaction has fully cleared.

How the scam works

Step 1

The "mistake"

A buyer sends what looks like an overpayment confirmation — often for a specific, plausible amount — and claims it was accidental.

Step 2

The refund request

They ask you to send back the difference, often via a fast, irreversible method like Zelle.

Step 3

The real money leaves

You send the refund in genuine, irreversible funds — while their original "payment" hasn't actually cleared.

Step 4

The reversal

Days later, the original payment bounces or gets charged back, sometimes for the full amount — leaving you out both the item and the refund you sent.

The fake shipping label variant

A related trick: a buyer offers to send a "prepaid shipping label" so you skip the postage cost. The label is often fraudulent — it mainly exists to collect your name and address, and the package gets returned or held while they dispute the payment.

How to spot it

Any overpayment followed immediately by a refund request.
A payment confirmation shown as a screenshot or email, not verified in your own bank or payment app.
Pressure to refund quickly, before you'd normally check that funds have cleared.

What to do

Walk away if a buyer overpays and immediately asks for money back — don't engage further.
Verify funds directly in your own bank or payment app, never from a screenshot.
Wait for full clearance (7–10 business days for a check) before refunding anything.
Report the buyer's profile to Facebook and file a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Egidio: your automatic phishing detector

This scam relies on convincing fake confirmations and fraudulent shipping-label links. Egidio catches malicious links relayed through your messaging apps before they can do anything.

Egidio screens incoming calls and scans links arriving through your messaging apps in real time and blocks known fake-payment and fake-shipping-label pages the moment they're recognised.

Install Egidio