Old scams making new rounds in Northland

The Superior Police Department has once again received several complaints of potential scams involving buying and selling property on the Internet through sites like Craigslist, as well as scams where victims are being called by a party posing as a friend or family member of the victim.

In these cases the suspect caller tells the victim that their friend loved one has been arrested somewhere and needs money for bail and/or pretends to be the friend or loved one and says they need money wired to them for bail. Unfortunately some victims did conduct the transactions and are out the money. Those dollar amount typically range from a few hundred dollars to maybe a thousand dollars.

In the cases involving Craigslist and EBay, typically the suspect "purchaser" contacts the unsuspecting victim who has a legitimate item for sale online. The "purchaser" may send a check or money order to the seller for 2 to 3 times the actual sale price, explaining that they have to write the check for that amount because of various reasons. They ask the seller to cash the check and to retain a small portion over the original sale price. The seller is then asked to return the rest of the cashed check to the "purchaser,", only to discover later the check or money order is counterfeit. Other variations include talking the victim seller into forwarding money for "shipping cost" of the item the victim is selling.

Citizens are advised that they should be wary of online ads for services, sales or rental property. Craigslist even advises consumers of the following: You can sidestep would-be scammers by following these common-sense rules:

Deal locally with folks you can meet in person --follow this simple rule and you will avoid 99 percent of the scam attempts on Craigslist.