Most people use Facebook Marketplace to sell a slightly dented bookshelf or a bread maker they used twice. Kymberlee Schopper and Ashley Lelesi, co-owners of a Florida curio shop called Wicked Wonderland, took a different approach and listed human bones. A rib for $35. A vertebrae for $35. A partial skull for $600. Police received a tip in December 2023 and opened an investigation.
That led to both women being charged with the purchase or sale of human organs and tissue. The co-owner's defence, delivered apparently without irony, was that she had been selling human bones for several years and was simply unaware it was prohibited in Florida. The skull, presumably, was unavailable for comment.
While Facebook Marketplace doesn't release official transaction data, verified sales from individual sellers have reportedly reached anywhere between $100,000 and $250,000, typically involving luxury cars, high-end commercial machinery, or real estate.
Someone, somewhere, has completed a quarter-million-dollar transaction on the same platform currently hosting a listing for a "gently used" mattress described as having "good vibes." The full spectrum of human commerce, compressed into one app, for everyone.
The most audacious Facebook Marketplace scam on record belongs to a Missouri man whose operation was so sophisticated it almost deserves a reluctant round of applause before the prison sentence. He listed high-quality used cars below market value and completed the sales with convincing fake titles and forged bills of sale.
He took the cash and then used duplicate keys and GPS trackers to steal the cars back within a day or two. He sold the same vehicles to at least eight different buyers, collected tens of thousands of dollars, and was eventually hit with 14 felony charges. He got close to a hundred years for selling the same car over and over again. The commitment to the bit was, objectively, extraordinary.
And now, the redemption arc this list desperately needed. In 2023, content creator Justin Miller was scrolling through Marketplace when he spotted a heavily bruised, ripped leather wingback chair listed for $50. He was an Antiques Roadshow fan, and it quickly caught his eye. He bought the chair, ran it through Google Lens, and discovered it was a rare 1935 masterpiece by iconic Danish furniture designer Frits Henningsen.
He contacted Sotheby's, and they authenticated it, tears and all. It sold at auction for $107,950. A man who watches antique television as a hobby quickly turned $50 into a life-changing amount of money. Facebook Marketplace giveth and Facebook Marketplace taketh away, but occasionally it also giveth one hundred and seven thousand dollars.
A Chicago woman bought a recliner couch from Facebook Marketplace, brought it home, sat on it for a full hour with her friend, and did not notice anything unusual. That was until the original seller messaged her to ask, with what must have been extraordinary casualness, whether her cat might still be inside the couch.
The answer was yes. A living cat had survived the entire transaction from inside the furniture, completely undetected until its previous owner had a mild moment of concern and sent a text. The cat was fine. The couch was returned. The woman's TikTok went viral. And somewhere in Chicago, a cat is probably still grounded.
In 2024, Kayla McDowell paid $15 for a distressed wooden mirror on Facebook Marketplace and took it home to clean. While doing so, she noticed the paper backing was slightly loose. She peeled it back and found a hidden collection of handwritten love letters dating back to World War One, perfectly preserved, deeply personal, and completely extraordinary.
Letters written between two people across a century of distance, tucked inside a $15 mirror on a digital flea market, waiting for someone curious enough to look. It is the most romantic thing Facebook Marketplace has ever produced, which is a sentence nobody expected to write today, but here we are.
