Why Did Facebook Take Away Marketplace? Users Want Answers

Since it first introduced its Marketplace feature, Facebook has become a go-to spot for many who are looking to buy or sell things locally. While not everyone on Facebook uses the feature, plenty of people have found something they wanted and snagged a deal with the service.

Recently, though, some users have noticed that Marketplace appears to have been taken away from their accounts. Following this discovery, many have wondered why Facebook decided to remove the feature, and whether it had anything to do with their behavior on Facebook. Here’s what we know about why Facebook Marketplace has disappeared.

Many users are receiving an error when they try to access Facebook Marketplace. Facebook gives them a message that says “Marketplace Isn’t Available to You” accompanied by an additional message that explains “You may be seeing this message if you recently joined Facebook, if Marketplace hasn’t launched in your country, or if your account doesn’t meet our eligibility requirements. To learn more, visit our Help Center.”

Most of the people who are receiving this message previously had access to Marketplace, which has led them to wonder why they suddenly don’t. Marketplace does ban users it thinks might be likely to scam others. The site also bans accounts that have been accused of scams in the past. Many of these users claim to be highly rated sellers or buyers, though, which only makes the sudden unavailability of Marketplace seem even stranger.

While the issue isn’t universal, it seems to be a widespread glitch that’s impacting a lot of Facebook users for no apparent reason. These users just suddenly lose access to Marketplace completely, which means that they can’t look at other people’s listings or post listings of their own. Unfortunately, there’s nothing that users can do about this problem except wait for Facebook to fix the issue.

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has yet to release any statement suggesting that they are aware of the issue or working on it. Given how widespread the problem appears to be, though, it seems unlikely that they aren’t at least somewhat aware that people are experiencing issues. Fortunately, if you’re experiencing this problem, you can trust that it’s an issue with Facebook and not with you.

Although there’s no obvious solution to this issue other than creating a new account, users are connecting with one another on Reddit over their shared misfortune.

“Mine is gone why is it gone? I haven’t done anything. I haven’t even posted anything. I’m just trying to find cars,” one person wrote on Reddit.

“Same thing here!! I’m a high rated seller and have no idea what happened. I have over 200 listings and this is really upsetting,” another person added.

Facebook’s glitch has definitely upset a lot of their core users, who may decide to take their wares to Craigslist if the problem isn’t resolved soon.