Man takes dirt bike for ‘test drive,’ doesn’t return after couple falls for Facebook scam

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — DeKalb County police are looking for a man a Tennessee couple says scammed them on Facebook Marketplace.

Garrett Best told Channel 2′s Veronica Griffin that after he and his girlfriend posted an ad for their KTM dirt bike, a man in DeKalb County reached out and said he was interested in purchasing it.

“This profile messages us saying, ‘Man, I really need this bike in my garage. This is a bike I really like. I’ll offer you $400 extra to deliver it to my doorstep.’” Taylor Bowman, Best’s girlfriend, said.

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After exchanging messages with the potential buyer, Best and his girlfriend loaded up the $13,000 bike and drove from their home in Tennessee to DeKalb County to meet the buyer.

Best said they met the buyer at a location in unincorporated DeKalb where the man claimed to live. Then, when the buyer asked to test drive the bike, he never returned.

“When he asked if he could test drive it, I thought that was pretty valid,” Bowman said.

The couple now believes the buyer was using a fake or stolen Facebook page to steal the bike from them.

“I pretty much had a gut reaction as soon as he left with [the bike] that he wasn’t coming back,” Best told Griffin. “If we had looked more at the Facebook profile, it was obviously fake.”

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The couple spoke with the homeowner at the address where they met the buyer; they learned he had no ties to that address.

“[The homeowner] was just as shocked as we were,” Taylor Bowman, Best’s girlfriend, said.

Best and Bowman told Griffin they regretted not meeting the man at the police station.

“He wanted to know exactly when we were going to get there, but it turns out it wasn’t his address, and he was having somebody drop him off,” Best said. “That’s why he wanted to know exactly when we were going to get there.”

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The couple has since filed a police report and offered a reward for returning their bike.

Channel 2 Action News contacted DeKalb County police for an update on the investigation but has not received a response.

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