A young mum who thought she was buying a bargain iPhone on Facebook Marketplace is warning others of the elaborate scam that has left her £520 out of pocket.
Georgina Ambrose-Rourke, 23, saw what she believed was a cut-price iPhone XS Max on the site's buying and selling platform, Liverpool ECHO reports .
With that model costing £1,499 from Apple, the mum-of-one from Wavertree thought she was getting a real bargain - this one being listed for just £620.
But it turned out that the deal was too good to be true, as the phone - which was delivered sealed in its 'original box' along with a 'receipt' - was a dud.
Georgina said: "I messaged the lady selling it to ask if it was still available and within an hour or two she said she could drop it off. I asked if it was new and she said it was brand new, sealed and came with a receipt.
"I didn't think anything of it and thought it was a good deal. She said someone would come and drop it off that night [Monday, March 25].
"A man came and passed me the phone, brand new in a sealed box and he got out a Carphone Warehouse receipt. He said it was under a one year warranty."
She handed over £520 in cash, with the promise to transfer the remainder of the price the following morning - but when she opened her new purchase she realised the price was too good to be true.
Georgina said: "At about 11.30pm that night I got into bed, unwrapped the box and I was made up. It only had a bit of battery so I plugged it in and as I did, it said came up 'Android system' and my heart fell out.
"Everything on it is the same as an iPhone. Even on the settings it's all the same. When you go to type a message or send something it doesn't come up with the iPhone keypad, it's an Android keypad.
"I thought I hadn't seen anyone with the new iPhone so maybe it's just an updated keypad. I went online and typed in the difference between a fake and a real one and they were all true, so I realised it was fake."
Georgina bought the phone from a woman calling herself Charlene Collins on the Facebook Marketplace - but a friend who tried to contact the scammer online saw she had already changed her name to 'Cassi Chloe Davie Johnjoe McDonagh'.
On Tuesday morning, Georgina dropped her six-year-old daughter Lucy off at school and went straight to the Carphone Warehouse to try and work out what had happened.
She says a member of staff confirmed the phone was not bought at the store and that the receipt was not one they would issue.
Since sharing her experiences on social media, Georgina has been in touch with another man who believes he was scammed by the same woman.
He had bought another dud phone off someone using the same phone number and address - and that the same man dropped the item off at his house. The man also had a matching Carphone Warehouse receipt.
Georgina said she was sharing her story in the hopes of warning other people off buying fake goods on Facebook. She said: "Obviously I'm not getting my money back now because it's gone - but there's people working hard for their money and getting scammed out of hundreds of pounds."
The ECHO contacted the Facebook user behind the sale but had not received a response at the time of publication.
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