Heather Hudson sometimes sells things on Facebook Marketplace, but she never gives her home address to strangers.

But random people regularly show up at his door at all hours of the day to pick up items for which they pay a small deposit – only to find out they’ve been scammed by someone, and it’s not Hudson.

“I don’t know how I got pulled into the middle of this,” Hudson said. “For example, why is it my house and not my neighbor’s house?”

The trouble started on a Sunday night in March. Hudson was getting ready for bed at her southwest Calgary home when the doorbell rang. It was 10pm so he ignored it. But then the doorbell rang again. And again.

Annoyed, Hudson went to the door and saw a man getting into his truck.

“I asked him, ‘What are you doing knocking on my door late at night?’ “I was the crazy woman screaming,” she recalled. “He said he was there to pick up an item, and I said, ‘No, you’re not!’ I said.”

Hudson assumed the man had been given incorrect pickup information, but when they checked the address it became clear the man had been scammed.

The man left, and Hudson thought nothing more about it.

But the same thing kept happening.

According to Hudson, people would show up at his bungalow door saying they were there to pick up an item they had left as a deposit (usually $20 to $40). He would have to disappoint them every time.

“They all say, ‘I should have known,’ because the price is too good to be true or it’s something they’ve been looking for for a long time,” says Hudson. he said.

“So I started saying, ‘You should report the ad, you should report the profile,’ because these are all fake profiles,” he said.

About 20 people came to his house

Hudson estimates 15 to 20 people have come to his home since March. Once, when he parked in his garage, he found a man waiting for him in the back alley.

“He said, ‘I’m here to look at the bike.'” “It was kind of a kids’ bike, a road bike for kids.”

He added locks to his back door to prevent people from entering the yard and searching for items, and even hung a handwritten sign on his front door: “If you’re here to buy FB Marketplace or Kijiji: There No items here You’ve been scammed! Report the seller and the ad to Facebook.…”

The latest incident, which occurred earlier this month, was the first in a long time. Hudson even took down the sign on his front door.

“I’ve had a good recession since August,” he said. “So I thought maybe it was over.”

Not done. Hudson has had to back up his homemade logbook since mid-October.

“I got sucked into it. And there were a couple of times where I said ‘go away, leave me alone, leave me out of this scam’.”

Hudson reported the problem to the police. They said there was nothing they could do because he wasn’t under threat.

In a statement, the Calgary Police Service told CBC News it’s common for scammers to use a real address that doesn’t belong to them. They advise people “not to pay for the item until you are completely sure that the address, purchase and collection are safe and legitimate.” CPS also referred CBC News to Facebook Marketplace security tips posted on Instagram feeds.

But these tips won’t make any difference for Heather Hudson. He no longer likes to answer the door and even gets anxious when a car pulls up in front.

“It changes your nervous system,” he said. “It’s like you’re suddenly on high alert.”

CBC News also reached out to Meta, which owns Facebook; is investigating.

Claudiu Popa, a privacy and cybersecurity expert based in Toronto, says this is the first time he’s heard of this particular type of scam involving a third party’s real home address, but he’s not surprised.

“There are many types of down payment fraud,” Popa said. “People are motivated to pay some money up front to keep an item.”

Popa said it is easier to protect defrauded people than the person whose real address is used as an intermediary. For someone like Hudson, he suggests contacting the police and asking for permission to put a police contact number on the door sign or even a sign printed on police letterhead.

He recommended that people using Marketplace or other online classifieds sites such as Kijiji should never make an advance deposit via e-transfer, even if it is a small amount.

“You need to develop your critical thinking skills before you wire money to someone. You need to get to know them via email or phone.”

Popa also suggested that instead of avoiding the Marketplace, listing an item for sale and watching for red flags from potential buyers might help.

“Get used to the scams you see,” he said.