As if buying a used car wasn’t hard enough, the misleading dealer listings flooding sales platforms like Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp don’t make things any easier. In an update first spotted by a user on RedditMeta has announced that it is limiting dealers’ ability to list cars on Marketplace, but it probably doesn’t mean those pesky listings will go away for good (through jalopnik).
If you’ve ever shopped online for a used car, you probably know the kind of dealer listings I’m talking about. They often only show the required down payment of a car, or – more annoyingly – list vehicles for $1 in an attempt to get your attention.
But starting January 30, 2023, dealers will encounter a roadblock when they try to list a used car for sale on the Marketplace: They will no longer be able to list cars from their company page. This should be Facebook’s way of giving dealers a boost for buying Marketplace adsbut what this will? probably is creating an even greater influx of dealers posting free listings from a personal Facebook profile. This can make it even more difficult to distinguish legitimate listings posted by someone close to you versus the dealer-supported listings that are often too good to be true.
On top of that, Meta’s Business Support Page also does not explicitly discourage the use of personal profiles for dealers. It describes a list of “other ways” dealers can reach buyers without posting Marketplace listings from their business page, and one of these solutions is to “Create Marketplace listings for vehicles, home sales, and home rentals.” from your personal profile.”
There are already tons of dealers impersonating a real (or fake) individual when they place a listing on Marketplace. And while these listings should have a “dealer company” tag below the listing’s photo, this tag is often missing. While searching for cars near me, I came across several scam-looking car dealership lists posted by personal accounts, with “Dealerships” tags few and far between. The edge contacted Facebook to see if it has plans to address the misleading listings of individual accounts, but didn’t hear back immediately.
Meta’s new Marketplace rule applies to sellers in several countries, including the US, Canada, France, UK, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Germany, and Australia. The company is also extending the rule to sellers posting real estate and rental listings, but only in the US.