Local buy-and-sell groups are among the most useful Telegram communities: furniture, bikes, baby gear and phones change hands every day. They are also where scammers make money fastest, because every post is an invitation to start a private deal with a stranger. This tutorial is for the admins of those groups.
The four scams you will see most
1. The fake payment screenshot. The “buyer” sends an edited screenshot of a bank transfer or payment app and asks the seller to ship or hand over the item right away. When the seller checks their account, nothing has arrived.
2. The courier or “safe delivery” link. The buyer says they can’t come in person and will use a delivery service. They send a link to a fake courier page where the seller must “confirm the delivery and receive the money” by entering their card details.
3. Overpayment. The buyer “accidentally” pays too much (in a fake screenshot, of course) and asks the seller to send the difference back. The original payment never existed.
4. Fake sellers with deposits. A too-cheap phone or console listing. The seller asks for a deposit to “reserve” it, then disappears. Often the photos are stolen from another listing.
Group rules that cut most of it
Pin a short rule set and link to it in the welcome message:
- Meet in person where possible, in a public place.
- Payment is confirmed only in your own banking app, never by a screenshot.
- No courier links from buyers. If delivery is needed, the seller chooses the service and books it themselves.
- No deposits to strangers for items you haven’t seen.
- One post per item, with a real photo and the price. Reposts of the same item every hour are removed.
Settings for the group
- Hide the member list, so scammers can’t DM every seller at once.
- Restrict links for new members. Real buyers don’t need links. Courier scams depend on them.
- Slow mode (for example, one message every 5 minutes) keeps listing spam down.
- Join requests with a question such as “Which town or district are you in?” Most scam accounts skip the question or answer with nonsense.
- A post template in the pinned message: item, condition, price, area, photo. Posts that don’t follow it are easy to delete.
- Topics if the group is large: For sale, Wanted, Free stuff, Warnings.
A “Warnings” routine
Create a read-only Warnings topic or pinned post where admins describe new scam patterns, without personal details:
- what the message looked like,
- what the fake link or screenshot showed,
- what members should do instead.
When a member reports a scam attempt, ban the account, delete its messages, and add a one-line warning. Over time this becomes the most useful thing in the group.
Automatic filtering
Admins of local groups are volunteers, and scam accounts post at all hours. An anti-ad bot handles the repetitive work: deleting links from accounts that joined minutes ago, copy-paste “courier” messages, mass mentions and promotional spam.
虾宝 (Xiabao) is an anti-ad bot for Telegram groups that is free for group owners. Add @xiabaotg_bot as an admin with permission to delete messages and ban users, and it filters ad and scam messages automatically. The step-by-step Xiabao setup guide covers adding the bot and choosing its settings.
Checklist for admins
- Pinned rules: meet in person, check your own bank app, no buyer courier links, no deposits
- Member list hidden
- Links restricted for new members
- Slow mode on
- Join requests with a location question
- Post template pinned
- Warnings topic kept up to date
- Anti-spam bot running
Disclosure: written by the 虾宝 (Xiabao) team, which maintains the bot mentioned above.
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