The Arroba Teams of the Las Palmas Civil Guard Command have detected a significant volume of scams through the purchase of second-hand products on internet pages, as reported by the Benemérita itself.
These types of scams have in common that the scammer always provides their victim with an account number belonging to an international entity, so tracking the accounts and accessing the person who commits the crime or recovering the money is complicated as it depends on the legal compatibility of each country.
Since the Arroba Teams began performing their duties last October, in addition to investigating numerous scams of all kinds, they have concentrated their police work on clarifying 49 scams where the money has been deposited in another country, concentrating in Lanzarote almost half of them because numerous citizens of foreign origin reside on the island who make purchases in their countries of origin.
Faced with this type of event, the Civil Guard advises to always be wary if the contact telephone number with the seller or buyer does not start with the Spanish code +34; the bank deposit carries a BIC or SWIFT code, instead of IBAN; the conversation seems to be carried out with a robot or automatic translator; if the seller claims to be on the peninsula or a country that does not coincide with the place where we must make the transaction; the price to be agreed is well below its value in the market; check on the internet if there are scams related to the product or the seller.
When you do not have experience in buying second-hand products, it is recommended to ask for advice from a trusted person familiar with this type of task; even if the product is on a famous second-hand portal and the seller assures that the payment method is secure, it does not guarantee that the purchase is real.
If you decide to make the purchase: use a payment method that guarantees the return of the money in case of fraud; capture the screen image where the advertisement is located and, above all, the reference of the offer; if we are victims of a scam, always report it.
