Meta's Purchase Protection covers a shipped Marketplace order only when the money moved through Marketplace's own checkout. Step outside it, which is exactly what most shipping scams ask a buyer or seller to do, and the coverage is gone before the box ever leaves. This page reads Meta's own wording on both halves: what the protection covers, and where the scams aim instead.
Purchase Protection follows the payment, not the listing.
Meta's help center, checked 2026-08-25, says the cover costs nothing and attaches by itself to eligible orders bought with shipping or checkout on Marketplace — there is no box to tick and no upgrade to buy. A claim can be filed on five grounds, and an approved one refunds the item and the shipping paid for it, not just the item alone.
| Grounds for a claim | What happens if approved |
|---|---|
| The order never arrived | Full refund of the purchase price and any shipping cost paid at checkout |
| It arrived damaged or different from the listing | |
| The seller did not follow their own stated refund policy | |
| The purchase was unauthorized | |
| The seller has since been removed from Facebook |
Meta, How Purchase Protection works on Facebook Marketplace. Read 2026-08-25.
Meta's own exclusion line matters as much as the coverage does: “Purchases made through third-party sites, local pickups, Messenger transactions, or through other messaging services don’t qualify for Purchase Protection.” A shipped item is only covered when the shipping and the payment both ran through Marketplace's own checkout, which is the same feature eligible categories and listing prices gate before a seller can even offer it.
Meta's own scam guidance, checked 2026-08-25, does not read like a list of dramatic warning signs. It reads like a description of the one thing every version of the scam needs: getting the deal off the platform that would otherwise cover it.
Meta warns that “sellers may try to provide you with a link to another site to try and trick you into providing sensitive information.” A shipping label, a tracking page or a payment form that lives off facebook.com is the same move regardless of how it is dressed up.
Meta's guidance names the tempo itself as the signal: someone pushing you to finish a sale quickly, or pressing to complete it immediately, is listed alongside the outright frauds. A buyer insisting the seller ship before payment clears, or a seller insisting on payment before pickup is even arranged, is asking for the same shortcut.
Meta's advice is to take any tracking number shown on Marketplace to the shipping company's own site and check it there, along with the delivery address it carries. A tracking number that only exists as a screenshot, and never resolves on the carrier's own site, is not proof of anything.
Meta, About scams on Facebook Marketplace. Read 2026-08-25.
Marketplace's shipping toggle is not available on every listing, and a buyer or seller who hits that wall often solves it by moving the deal to Messenger and a separate payment app instead of walking away. That move is exactly what forfeits Purchase Protection, and it is why the safer version of the same workaround keeps the payment inside Marketplace checkout wherever it is offered, and treats a request to pay outside it as the whole warning by itself.
Buying a carrier label yourself when the prepaid option is missing does not restore Purchase Protection, and it should not be mistaken for a substitute. What it does add is a tracking number either side can look up independently on the carrier's own site, which is the one piece of Meta's own guidance a shipper controls directly. See buying your own Marketplace label for pricing that box before you agree a number with the other side.
Yes, for orders bought with Marketplace's own shipping or checkout. Meta calls it Purchase Protection and describes it as free, automatic coverage for eligible orders. It does not extend to local pickup, Messenger-only deals, or anything paid outside Marketplace checkout. Checked 2026-08-25.
Meta lists five grounds for a claim: the order never arrived, it arrived damaged or different from the listing, the seller broke their own stated refund policy, the purchase was unauthorized, or the seller has since been removed from Facebook. Approval refunds the full purchase price and any shipping cost paid through checkout.
Yes, and the scams cluster around the same weak point: moving the deal off Marketplace's own checkout. Meta's own scam guidance names sellers sending links to outside sites to harvest payment details, and pressure to move quickly as a warning sign in itself. A shipped item paid for through Messenger or an outside payment app carries none of Purchase Protection's coverage.
Paying outside Marketplace checkout. Meta states plainly that purchases made through third-party sites, local pickups, Messenger transactions, or other messaging services do not qualify. A buyer who agrees to pay a seller through a payment app because a listing has no shipping button has already stepped outside the coverage.
Tracking that both sides can check independently of Marketplace itself. Meta tells buyers to verify tracking numbers on the carrier's own site rather than trust a screenshot, and a label bought from any carrier or reseller produces that same trackable number regardless of which side of a Marketplace deal is arranging it.