Santa Paula woman scammed in jewelry purchase
A Santa Paula woman learned a hard lesson after she was scammed out of $5,000 in a fake jewelry purchase on Monday.
According to a press release from the Santa Paula Police Department, the 21-year-old Santa Paula woman was traveling down North Ojai Road in Santa Paula Monday morning when she was approached by two men who offered to sell the victim a diamond ring.
The suspects said the ring was valued at $20,000 and they offered to sell the ring to the victim at a reduced price. The victim agreed and drove the victim to her bank on the 500 block of W. Harvard Blvd and withdrew $5,000 from her bank account.
The victim gave the suspects the money and the suspects fled the area without the victim seeing or receiving the ring.
The first suspect has been described as a Hispanic male, approximately 30 years old, 5-foot 8-inches tall with a thin build. He is clean shaven with a scar on his nose and he was wearing a yellow and blue shirt, blue jeans and brown shoes.
The second suspect was described as a Hispanic male, approximately 50 years old, short with a heavy build and light brown hair and mustache. He was wearing glasses, a brown jacket, button shirt, black dress pants and black dress shoes.
The two men were seen driving a newer model Honda Civic.
Anyone with information regarding the crime is asked to contact Detective Shane Norwood at (805) 525-4474 ext. 287.
The Santa Paula Police Department would like to educate the public on how to avoid other types of scams.
They have listed some universal rules to help prevent future scams:
If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. A bank, credit card company, or utility company will never ask for your personal information by email, whether you have an account or not, period. Never give out personal information, credit card or account numbers on calls/emails/texts that you didn’t initiate. Before clicking on any links within emails or text messages, be sure to confirm the sender is legitimate. Always be on the lookout for bad English and grammatical errors.
If you have been the victim of a scam or believe someone is attempting to scam you please contact the Santa Paula Police Department at (805) 525-4474.
