Lubbock Man Loses Thousands In Internet Scam
By: Allison Morrison
Updated: October 29, 2009
A Lubbock man loses thousands after being fooled by a friend he met on the internet.
The story really starts in New York, where a woman there, put her engagement ring up for sale on Craigslist.
That's where the Lubbock man comes in.
Police say a Nigerian woman contacted the Lubbock man, asking him to purchase the ring off Craigslist, sell it to a local jewelry store, then send her the cash.
The Nigerian woman told the man she would pay for the ring, if she could have it shipped to his Lubbock address.
The woman then sent the ring's seller in New York, a fake PayPal receipt, never actually paying for it.
So, the ring shipped and the Lubbock man sold it to a local jeweler for $2,000, then sent that money to Nigeria.
When the ring's original owner in New York realized she never got her money, she contacted police, who uncovered the scam.
"You got to watch who you meet on the internet because there's a lot of people out there running these scams and they'll try to befriend you and then take advantage of you when you least expect it," Lubbock Police Sgt. Mark Watkins says.
Lubbock Police seized the ring from a local jewelry store and returned it to the original seller in New York, but the Lubbock man had to pay the jeweler back, losing $2,000 of his own money.
