Scams continue to collect victims – Local resident falls for Internet con

A local man who was conned out of $3,000 in an eBay deal gone bad illustrates the need for buyers to beware, according to sheriff’s investigator Jackie Matheny Jr., who is seeing more and more people losing large sums on Internet deals which end up being scams.

‘Folks really need to use an extra bit of caution especially on big-ticket items,’ said Matheny, indicating chances of recovering money lost on Internet scams are nearly zero. ‘We have caught a couple of people here who were scamming people elsewhere in the country on eBay, but that’s because we followed up on complaints. There’s no guarantee that in bigger cities, that authorities there will follow up on complaints.’

According to Matheny, the latest scam involved a local man who thought he was buying a 1998 Mitsubishi from a man in Maryland for $3,000. Matheny said the victim was contacted via e-mail by the seller telling him his original sale had fallen through and that he would be willing to sell him the car without re-listing it with eBay. The local man then sent $3,000 to a location in California, thinking he was sending it to an eBay company.

‘If a seller says he is in Maryland and wants you to send the payment to California, you need to beware,’ said Matheny, noting that since taking the man’s money, the seller has shown up again trying to sell the same car on the Internet. ‘People are getting connections at Internet cafe’s and motels and then having folks send MoneyGrams that can be picked up anywhere. Then, the money is gone forever and there is no realistic chance of getting the thief or the money. There’s just nothing we can do.’

Matheny said it is a good idea to know who you are dealing with when buying items, even on eBay, and to make sure they have good feedback on the site. Matheny suggests using payment utilities like PayPal which protects its customers against scams, instead of sending money orders to unconfirmed addresses.

In addition to eBay scams, Matheny is also reminding people to beware of any solicitations which offer free money.

‘We’ve seen a lot of these mailings lately where people are sent checks and told to send money back to an address,’ Matheny said. ‘These are always scams. People don’t win lotteries they didn’t enter and people don’t just get lucky and have money given to them.’

Like eBay scams, Matheny said once money or account numbers are released, the victim has no real chance of getting their money back. The most recent rash involves checks sent from Canada for thousands of dollars, asking that money be sent back for paperwork or handling charges. The checks sent to the victims are worthless but by the time they find out the checks are fake, their money is already gone.

‘I know there is a lot of information warning about these scams, but people are still getting taken,’ Matheny said.