A new scam is doing terrible damage to users of the Leboncoin site. Indeed, the scammers take advantage of the rise in the price of heating to steal from their victims.
Scams are multiplying, but they are not alike. This advertisement published on Leboncoin caused Bruno, a Vayrois, to lose hundreds of euros, who saw the opportunity to lower your heating budget this year. Unfortunately for him, it was a well-crafted scam, with a cubic meter of wood. The man ordered 10 cubic meters of logs this summer, to be able to heat himself this winter. A price defying all competition which served as bait: “50 euros per cubic meter of wood!“, explains Bruno in the columns of the Parisian.
On the day of the delivery, the resident of Vayres, in Gironde, sees a man disembark in a van. Wood, there is, but not enough: “He said to me: ‘don’t worry, I’ll come back with what’s missing’“. The scammer then claims 500 euros, the sum due for all the timber. A price that Bruno does not want to pay. That’s when a second crook comes out of the van, bigger and more imposing. The victim then explains to the media that he ends up giving in and giving the 500 euros to the two men. He will never see the color of his last cubic meters of wood.
A firewood scam
According to the platform Signal Scams, timber sales scams have increased 10-fold in just one year. “The crooks realized that it’s a good threadthey have a process that is well in place“, explains Jean-Baptiste Boisseau, co-founder of the Signal Arnaques platform. Bruno is therefore not the only victim of this scam. A Bordelais lost 158 euros, thinking of placing an order with a real company selling wood.
As winter approaches, as the cold reaches the cottages, many French people have chosen to invest in firewood. Scammers will therefore be more and more productive on the internet. It is advisable to be very vigilant about the sites on which you buy and never pay before receiving the product, such is the advice of Jean-Baptiste Boisseau.