Scamming reminder: It's happening out there and online

Sue Genest is no dumbbell. When the Victoria resident found what looked like an online deal for weights but the supposed seller demanded money in advance, she knew her goal of sculpting her body had attracted a chiseler.

“I was interested in getting the dumbbells, but because I’ve been ripped off before, I refused to give a deposit—of course, they said they were legit—I went to the address they told me to go to at 4pm and the person at home had no idea what I was talking about,” Genest tells Capital Daily in an email.

Genest checked the ad and… poof: “The complete conversation was gone,” deleted from the internet.

Genest says she’s been tracking scammers on Facebook Marketplace who are posting a dumbbell set for sale. She took a series of screenshots of similar photos used with different profiles with physical addresses in Victoria.

She reported the information to Facebook but by the time the Meta social media giant may have looked into it, the profile would disappear and a new one would pop up with different information but the same dumbbells “for sale” at a great price, and someone just waiting to demand an advance fee.

Post an ad for an item at an eye-catching price, demand a few bucks in advance and arrange to make the deal at a legitimate yet unrelated address, and then take the ad down and start all over again with another dupe. All in a day’s work for the scammer.

As Genest says, “You’ll see the same pictures over the next few days with different sellers.”

In this particular scam, she says, the perpetrator used a variety of profile pictures, cycling through personas like the “average ‘Joe,’” a young family, and an older whose name changed once she tried to contact her.

As Genest says, “New ad, same scam.”

Pretending to sell items such as weights must make a good scam, she says, because she was seeing them daily. Genest has taken an interest in online scams and has a list of them she’s spotted. Often, they involve a swindler stealing a legitimate online ad from a different city—quite possibly not unlike the dumbbell saga—and changing the details to rip someone off.

1 in 4 in our poll said they had been scammed sometime

Screenshot of Capital Daily scam poll results.

Capital Daily recently ran a poll asking readers if they’ve ever been the victim of an online scam and 28% of respondents said they had.

“I paid close to $100 to get 2 pairs of name-brand shoes from a Facebook ad,” wrote one of our readers. “Even asked one of our adult children if it looked legit. Never got the product. Lesson learned.”

Things can appear valid and they can escalate as this reader discovered.

“I looked up Geek Squad and got a phony BestBuy website photo number. They sounded just like the Geek Squad I’ve used for years. They got into my computer by remote accessing 3 banks and stealing my identity. Lost $13,000.”

Then there's Muriel. She said she was scammed—and she was the seller on Facebook Marketplace.

She says the would-be buyer wanted to pay for the item right away and pick it up later because they were out of town.

"He sent me a link for an e-transfer which I've used many times before. The link took me to a page where I chose my bank & then entered my credentials but it was a fake portal. I lost $2800 & reported it to the police.  Hard lesson learned to accept cash only."

Muriel calls the entire affair stressful, to say the least. "So, that's why I have a few bank accounts & keep a minimal amount in my chequing account to make it more difficult for the perpetrator to access," she said.

Muriel went on to say her brother was scammed while on the same site.

‍ Some other reader remarks you sent in:

“Scammed by people who stole a friend's email address and asked for a loan. It sounded so much like her (except for the loan part!) that I was almost taken in. Decided to phone, just in case...it was a scam. Always phone!!!”

“I have been scammed twice and don't want to answer any more offers.”

One reader wrote that they were convalescing in hospital, “and not paying attention, $4,000 was gone from bank account, luckily reimbursed from the banking institution.”

Const. Nick Murray at Saanich Police said the internet is a fertile place for these crimes due to its anonymous nature and the easy ability of anyone to create a fake profile, which then disappears, leaving little evidence for police to track the scammers down.

“You should never provide money in advance,” he says. “If a buyer hasn't met the seller or viewed the item being sold, yet is being asked to pay a deposit, then they are at risk of being defrauded.”

He also says buyers should never be pressured into a deal. "Instead, they should take their time and remember that if a deal seems too good to be true then it probably is.”

Murray reminds anyone who’s been the victim of cyber crime, including marketplace scams, should report their experiences to police, “no matter how big or small the dollar amount.”

The numbers are staggering, and likely higher than we know

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says Canadians were defrauded of $638 million last year. But even that number is seen as low because not all fraud is reported.

Some of the most common involve phishing and personal ID scams. Who hasn’t received that text message purportedly sent from Canada Post saying there’s a package waiting and they need your credit care information?

Seniors are heavily targeted, yes but the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says fraud knows no age boundaries. as about half of Canadian adults have reported being victims of fraud at some point.

Fraud take many forms, from the cliched Nigerian scam where victims receive a letter asking for money to be transferred overseas to courier schemes such as the one that happened recently in Saanich, where a supposed courier physically attends the victims’ home and bilks money from the resident’s  bank account—one victim was taken for $12K.

Take precautionary steps when conducting business online

The anti-fraud centre’s suggestions for eluding a scam are straightforward and easily done:

• Research unfamiliar contacts
• Don’t click on suspicious links
• Never give out unsolicited personal information
• Use strong passwords and install antivirus software

Genest reminds that research is also right at your fingertips, including sources such as Facebook Marketplace reviews and Google Reviews and if it involves what appears to be a business, the Better Business Bureau and Yelp.