MINNEAPOLIS – A Twin Cities man hoping to buy a new vacuum cleaner had his vehicle stolen Friday during a Facebook Marketplace exchange in Minneapolis.
“I was looking for Dysons and I found one and I thought, OK, that’s a good deal,” Jesse Jeanetta said.
Jeanetta is no stranger to Facebook Marketplace. So when he found a deal on a Dyson vacuum cleaner, he grabbed $350 cash and drove to the seller in Minneapolis.
“At first he looked at me and said, you’re a really nice guy,” he said.
Jeanetta said the man met him outside Bryant Lake Bowl and asked him to follow him to the apartments around the corner. Then things took a turn.
“It feels like it happened so quickly and so slowly because I could have easily jumped in the car for him,” Jeanetta said.
Jeanetta said the potential seller gave him a container that he assumed contained the vacuum. As he prepared to load the car into his Honda Pilot, the man jumped behind the wheel and drove away with Jeanetta’s car, cash, backpack and some furniture, leaving him with a bin full of useless items.
Jesse Jeanette
‘He had my house keys, he had my address. He had everything,” Jeanetta said.
It forced him to change the locks on his North St. Paul home.
Jeanetta said his main motivation for going public about what happened is hopefully to prevent others from becoming victims.
“Don’t get comfortable. When I first started on Marketplace, I was much more aware of what I was doing,” Jeanetta said. “Be careful, because this could easily have been my last night here.”
Jeanetta’s advice is to conduct Facebook Marketplace transactions in a well-lit public place and during the day.
He is still hoping to get his car back and the Minneapolis Police Department is currently investigating.
Johannes Lauritsen
