Within the last day there has been a report of someone attempting the fake gold scam in the Oyen area.
This scam is often conducted on the side of the road where the scammer’s vehicle appears to be out of gas or broken down.
The suspects will flag down potential victims where they offer fake, cheap gold jewellery in exchange for cash to purchase fuel.
Sometimes the suspects will use other stories such as needing the money to feed their children or for a sick family member.
Some reports have indicated some aggression towards the victim in an attempt to get money.
“Whatever these people can come up with as a scam and get someone to buy into they will definitely try.
Their approach will vary in degree from very soft approach to the potential victim to being very aggressive so there are different modes of delivery that the scammers may use and sometimes an aggressive approach will work say on elderly people that don’t want to create conflict so they actually go more with the scam so education is really important.
Anyone that is approached by these scammers is asked to contact the RCMP immediately.
A plate and/or a vehicle description and location would be beneficial but people are asked not to put themselves in jeopardy to obtain such information.
“Scam awareness education is extremely important in crime prevention,” said Hanna RCMP staff Sgt. Trent Sperlie. “If we can educate people on the crimes or the scams that are happening so that they can identify a scam before hand then we are way ahead of the game.”
Other scam updates
During the spring, the local detachment sent out a list of unique scams the area has been witnessing, one of which was commercial theft of batteries and copper in two incidents.
These are continuing to be investigated.
There have been no reports of the cheap paving scam or theft of emissions equipment as brought forward in the spring press release.
In the cheap paving scam, suspects will directly contact people, usually in rural areas, offering paving services at a greatly reduced rate.
They will sometimes use the story of having product left over from a nearby job and it will just go to waste so they are selling it at below their cost.
The suspects will also use a sense of urgency that the pavement is already prepared and will have to be thrown out if it isn’t used quickly.
The victim accepts the services and gets the paving done.
Within a short period of time the paving begins to break down and crumble.
The issue with this scam is it is sometimes difficult to prosecute due to not being able to differentiate between being illegally scammed or just receiving a poor quality service so buyers are encouraged to do some research first.
“The big thing about this is if you feel like it doesn’t seem right or seems too good to be true then just take time to verify because nobody is out there giving anything away for free and nobody is going to put a time limit on a deal so make sure you verify any deal that you are looking at conducting,” said Sperlie.
“Report all suspicious behaviour,” Sperlie concluded.
Break in at RV storage lot
The Hanna RV Storage Lot was broken into resulting in property damage sometime between Tues. July 9 and Fri. July 12.
The suspect or suspects cut through the fence to the compound and then broke into several RV’s that were being stored.
These RV’s were damaged as a result of being broken into.
“They don’t know what is in the trailers but it’s an easy target for them but to prevent from becoming a bigger victim than just damage to the door which is easily fixed, take your high value items out of those when you store them. Don’t leave high value items in RVs or trailers or anything like that so that if this does happen you are not a bigger victim than what you have to be,” said Sgt. Sperlie.
Contact the Hanna RCMP at (403) 854-3393 with information.
Information can also be provided anonymously through Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers pays cash rewards for information that leads to the arrest of a suspect.
