Facebook Marketplace deals are turning deadly: Two people have been murdered this year trying to sell items.
On January 27, Illinois teenager Nedas Revuckas allegedly stabbed 30-year-old pregnant mother Eliza Morales 70 times before setting her house on fire.
Revuckas, 19, who police say confessed to the crime, was dissatisfied with a red 1994 Ford Ranger pickup he bought from Morales’ husband a week earlier through Facebook Marketplace. Revuckas is awaiting trial and has yet to enter a plea.
A few days earlier, on January 23, 42-year-old decorated Marine and preacher Michael Ryan Burke was shot at his home in Columbia, Missouri. He used his dying breath to text his mother and sister: “I’m dying, I love you.”
Four people who stole phones from Marketplace in the area were arrested and charged with manslaughter. One of them had responded to Burke’s ad with his iPhone 15 for sale.
Three of the defendants are adults who have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial. The fourth is a juvenile; the status of their case is unknown.
Victims say Marketplace — a free, built-in section of the Facebook platform where any user with a profile can buy or sell stuff — is rife with scams, selling popular merchandise, robberies or worse, and that users need better protection. The feature has over a billion monthly users, according to analysts.
Meta, parent company of Facebook, advises on the platform on how people should arrange meetups, saying: “If you see signs of suspicious activity when using Facebook Marketplace, immediately cancel the transaction, stop communicating with the other party and report the listing or person.”
However, it is too late for teenager Carlos Carrazana Ricardo of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who died senselessly while helping a friend.
His friend Erik needed a car and found one for sale in Baltimore, 80 miles away. Erik spoke no English, and Carlos — who worked in an Amazon warehouse and dreamed of going to college when he graduated — volunteered to drive and act as a translator.
But when the boys, both 18 years old, arrived to inspect the used Acura, which was for sale for $4,000, they saw that it was in poor condition. Erik no longer wanted to make the purchase, so they got into Carlos’ car to drive back to Pennsylvania.
But just as he shifted into first gear, the salesman, 18-year-old Marquis Harris, pulled out a gun and opened fire. One bullet hit Carlos’ car and passed through his skull, killing him instantly.
“We left Cuba for a better life, and my son was murdered by the hand of an American,” Carlos’ mother, Yanet Ricardo Vega, tearfully told The Post through a translator.
That was November 2023, and the family had only been in the US for a little over a year when Carlos’ short life tragically ended.
Harris was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison plus ten years.
Meta did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.
A Missouri couple decided to do something about it that year when they were victims of an armed robbery at Facebook Marketplace in March 2025.
A user named ‘Hotrod Scott’ asked the couple to manually deliver the order a $240 electric fireplace they were for sale, but after plugging it in to prove it worked, he pulled a gun on them.
The pair posted their experiences on Facebook, prompting dozens of comments from others who had similar stories, including one user who was robbed by the same man, who was eventually arrested.
“The scammers have a knowledge of psychology that Freud would have envied. They are able to rob people, and they do this with the help of companies like Facebook [who] make it easy [to do]”, cybersecurity expert and Bentley University professor Steve Weisman, who runs a scam prevention blog called Scamicidetold The Post.
Facebook, he said, seems to stand out because it attracts an older demographic, while most perpetrators are teenagers or in their early 20s. According to reports analyzed by The Post, violent gatherings are usually for the more expensive items — often cars and cellphones.
Criminals often create fake profiles and organize gatherings in shady locations with poor security, Weisman said, to protect themselves.
“Facebook is making a lot of money off this, and they are not monitoring their site to the extent they could and should, especially with the help of AI and the advanced analytics we have today,” Weisman said.
Most law enforcement agencies in the US do not track crimes that originate specifically from Facebook, but a Research 2021 by the nonprofit news site ProPublica found 13 murders linked to Marketplace that year.
The police in Dayton, Ohio, reported this 40 thefts linked to Marketplace meetings in 2025.
In a 2024 crime ring, the NYPD reported a pattern of nine armed robberies in which the suspects placed fake ads on Marketplace to lure victims in the Bronx and Queens. They made off with at least $17,000 in cash and cellphones taken at gunpoint. The perpetrators used the aliases ‘Akeem Brown’ and ‘George Smith’. They remain at large.
The issue has caught the attention of Congress. During a Senate Technology and Privacy Subcommittee in September 2025, a former Meta-integrity researcher Facebook whistleblower Jason Sattizahn blasted his ex-employer, telling lawmakers: “Marketplace causes suffering for users, including financial loss from stolen or counterfeit items, and personal safety issues ranging from being sexually propositioned by strangers to physical attacks and attempted kidnappings.”
Sattizahn’s research found that 9% of people reported at least one negative experience with the platform in the past month.
Critics and watchdogs have long complained that Meta puts profit over safety and that the tech giant can easily root out bad actors.
“They don’t check these things. They have the statistics. They know when I brush my teeth,” Weismann said.
“Facebook could require a verified ID. They could have more educational materials. The people who often commit these crimes do them repeatedly. Behavioral analytics could pick up and flag many fake sales that turn into violence. Just by taking these steps, Facebook could make it a lot safer.”
Facebook advises users to review the seller’s profile before making a deal, make an appointment “in a public, well-lit area” and share your plan with loved ones.
It is now too late for Carlos’ mother and many others.
“I thought Facebook Marketplace was a safe place,” the grieving mother said, fighting back tears. “There should be more verification somehow.”
“Carlos was the best son in the world. He was a great student, a great brother and son.”
Additional reporting by Isabel Vincent
