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Crime Brief

Campton Twp. man dodges fake buyer scam

He offered to sell bayonet for $200, gets phony check for $3,300

Scam alert

ST. CHARLES TOWNSHIP – A Campton Township man dodged a scam when a would-be buyer roused his suspicions with a fake check for $3,300 – way more than his asking price of $200 for a bayonet, according to Kane County Sheriff’s reports.

A resident of the 7N800 block of Corron Road reported March 17 that he listed an 1877 French bayonet on the online advertising site Craigslist on March 10, the report stated.

A person posing as a buyer said he was interested and would send a cashier’s check. The resident received an email on March 17 stating the payment would come through FedEx with extra funds for shipping, the report stated.

Then he received a text advising that the payment was delivered and he should deposit it immediately, the report stated.

But when the resident opened the package and saw that it was for $3,300, he became suspicious and called the address on the check, a construction company in Charlotte, North Carolina, the report stated.

The woman he spoke with said she’d received four calls that day regarding similar incidents and that the company did not send the packages or money, the report stated.

She told the resident that someone is using the company’s address as a return address, the report stated.

The resident turned the check over to police and agreed he would not have any more correspondence with the bayonet’s alleged buyer, the report stated.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, no one should accept a check for more than the selling price.

“You can bet it’s a scam,” according to the website, consumer.ftc.gov.

Fake check scams can be reported to the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service if the U.S. mail was used or to the state’s attorney general.

Brenda Schory

Brenda Schory

Brenda Schory covers Geneva, crime and courts, and features for the Kane County Chronicle