{"id":549986,"date":"2026-01-28T20:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/549986\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T20:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:55:10","slug":"couple-shares-warning-after-falling-for-fake-facebook-marketplace-listing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/549986\/","title":{"rendered":"Couple shares warning after falling for fake Facebook Marketplace listing"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 A young couple thought they had found their dream home in Jacksonville: a beautiful kitchen for her & a large garage for him to work on cars.<\/p>\n

They were settled in a home in Tallahassee, but a move could mean new opportunities, so they packed up and made the 2.5-hour trip with all their belongings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was an exciting move at first, and then it turned into a life nightmare,\u201d Asia Thomas told the News4JAX I-TEAM.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the Facebook Marketplace listing for the rental home in Jacksonville had been a scam. A lesson Thomas and her boyfriend, Austin Plouse, learned the hard way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we were acting in good faith, and it turned out it was some unlawful stuff going on,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n

Austin Plouse shared these text messages sent to him by a “landlord” in connection with a fake Facebook Marketplace rental listing. (Photos provided)<\/p>\n

A few days into the move, they realized something felt off. They said they contacted the authorities as quickly as they could.<\/p>\n

A week after they moved in, the police showed up along with a representative of the legitimate property manager, Invitation Homes.<\/p>\n

Plouse, 28, said he was grateful the property manager gave them 24 hours to remove their stuff because they could have been kicked out on the spot.<\/p>\n

The city of Jacksonville provided some emergency financial assistance that covered a storage unit and the cost of a U-Haul, and a friend Plouse barely knows from his new job stepped in to help them get everything out of the house.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve been hopping from one hotel to another ever since.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re still looking for a place to rent, but the financial setback has made the next steps difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found some things, but we\u2019re still recovering from the big loss,\u201d Plouse said. \u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of things that I\u2019ve had to put on the back burner that has just been crushing me financially. And it\u2019s been really, really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plouse said when the alleged landlord asked him to pay the deposit and first month\u2019s rent via Zelle, he didn\u2019t think much of it because he\u2019s paid private landlords that way before.<\/p>\n

But then the \u201clandlord\u2019s\u201d Zelle \u201cwasn\u2019t working,\u201d and Plouse paid him $1,050 through Apple gift cards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I kind of was like, OK, this is really suspicious, but I had already sent him $500 through Zelle,\u201d Plouse said.<\/p>\n

Plouse said the \u201clandlord\u201d wouldn\u2019t send them the contract until they had paid a deposit and the first month\u2019s rent.<\/p>\n

Thomas was skeptical, considering where they had found the listing online, so she demanded the \u201clandlord\u201d send them a photo of his ID. And he did.<\/p>\n

But it later turned out it was fake.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people are good. They\u2019re very good at what they do,\u201d Plouse said.<\/p>\n

A young couple thought they had found their dream home in Jacksonville, until they found themselves in a rental scam nightmare. (Photos provided)<\/p>\n

The couple said they were given a key code that let them view the house, but when it was time to move in, the \u201clandlord\u201d had Plouse get the key from the lockbox \u201cprobably not very legally\u201d — using a screwdriver.<\/p>\n

The \u201clandlord\u201d told Plouse to send him a photo of the key to confirm he\u2019d gotten it out of the box.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I did that, and he said congratulations, and he was wishing us Merry Christmas,\u201d Plouse said.<\/p>\n

He said even after the scam was revealed and they were kicked out of the home, the \u201clandlord\u201d was trying to contact him. He said the police have told him not to respond.<\/p>\n

Thomas said returning to the home for their interview with the I-TEAM was an emotional experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put all my faith into making this transition for better opportunities just for it all to be snatched away,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cIt\u2019s just like starting from fresh up, nothing. So that\u2019s devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple shared two pieces of advice for others looking for rental properties: do your research and meet them in person.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake sure everything is legitimate,\u201d Thomas said, \u201cbecause you can think you have a great deal and you don\u2019t have nothing at all but a nightmare ahead of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple has a GoFundMe<\/a> for anyone who would like to donate to help them recover from the scam and get back on their feet.<\/p>\n

News4JAX reached out to Invitation Homes about the incident, and they shared the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are always frustrated to discover that one of our homes has been used for these types of scams, which can have a devastating impact on the victims. Our goal, as always, is to offer quality homes and ensure our residents have great experiences. We take multiple precautions to prevent criminals from using our homes for scams, including working with a third party that analyzes independent listing sites for fraudulent listings of Invitation Homes properties and facilitates the removal of any such listings. <\/p>\n

To protect prospective residents, we provide advice on fraud prevention<\/a>, which includes being cautious of requests for cash or wire payments accompanied by emotional pleas, abnormally high security deposits, and the absence of required background checks. We encourage anyone interested in renting one of our homes to contact us directly via our website at www.invitationhomes.com<\/a>. We also advertise on trusted home listing sites such as Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, and others (we do not advertise on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace).”<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A young couple thought they had found their dream home in Jacksonville: a beautiful kitchen…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":549987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,32285,3188,723,69938,57511,15780,7310,6459,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-549986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-america","tag-facebook-marketplace","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-i_team","tag-i-team","tag-investigations","tag-jacksonville","tag-money","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}