Sudbury victim defrauded $9,500 in Kijiji lumber scam

Woman loses $12K in Kijiji buyer scam A Scarborough woman was scammed $12K after a buyer sent her a faulty payment link on Kijiji.

A fraud scheme using Kijiji to sell ‘leftover lumber’ has been uncovered in Greater Sudbury.

In a news release Friday, police said the person or persons behind the scheme used stolen credit cards to buy the lumber from a local business, then sold it on Kijiji via an online money transfer.

Police were called Sept. 6 and learned that, during the month of August, the business received three orders for lumber. Each order was made with a different stolen credit card.

However, the lumber was delivered to an address before the business found out the credit cards were stolen.

“Officers attended the delivery address and spoke with the landowner who advised that they had purchased the lumber through a Kijiji ad and paid for it via e-transfer,” police said in a news release Friday.

“The landowner had seen an ad on Kijiji and believed that the lumber was left over from a prior build, hence the reduced cost. It was only when police attended that the landowner learned that they were now in possession of stolen property as the lumber had been purchased on stolen credit cards.”

The fraudster would apparently advertise the ‘leftover lumber’ for sale on Kijiji, then when they found a buyer, they would order new lumber from the business and have it delivered by a separate delivery contractor to the buyer. The fraudster even had the victim pay for the cost of delivery.

“It was believed that the invoices were legitimate, and the contractor was told the invoices would be paid once the deliveries were complete,” police said.

“The contractor was paid by the landowner upon each delivery.”

Police were able to recover close to $11,000 worth of lumber and return it to the local business.

“However, the landowner who made the purchase through Kijiji lost over $9,500 due to the e-transfers and payments for the deliveries,” police said.

“The investigation into the incident is ongoing as officers work to try to determine the origin of the accounts where the e-transfers were paid.”

The public is reminded to be cautious when making substantial purchases on buy/sell sites. If the deal seems too good to be true, it usually is.