Cayuga Sheriff warns of multiple local scams

Sheriff David Gould reports that The Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office continues to take reports and investigate a number of scams involving the internet and fraudulent checks. Recent cases involve classified ads where the intended victim has advertised something for sale either in a newspaper or on the internet. The perpetrators contact the targeted victim and claim to want to buy the item and then “mistakenly” send the victim a check for an amount several times greater than the asking price. The perpetrators then ask the victim to cash the check and Western Union the difference back to the buyer. This is a scam and the public is advised not to cash these checks and to discontinue any correspondence with the alleged “buyer”.Small business operators should be extremely suspicious of any “buyer” who contacts them and wishes to place an abnormally large order with their company via the internet, especially when the buyer is out of the country.Another very popular scam involves citizens being contacted by a scammer via the internet who requests to have items shipped to their homes and then requests they forward the items to other addresses around the world. The perpetrator offers to pay the citizen a fee for their services. This property that is being shipped through the “middle man” is property that is purchased with stolen identities and stolen credit cards. The public is urged not to get involved with these scammers as you would be assisting a criminal enterprise and potentially committing a crime. The public is also reminded that any “lottery” or similar type of game that requests that you send money first in order to receive large sums of money later is also a scam. No legitimate contest or lottery game operates in this manner.