Vehicle thieves and scammers were again on the prowl in the Carletonville area this week.

The police in Carletonville warns that there were two attempted car thefts this week. One of the cases took place at Fluorspar Street in Carletonville while the other happened in East Driefontein.

Luckily the thieves were not ale to flee with the vehicles.

Always make sure that your vehicle is locked and is stored in a locked place, preferably a garage, the police warn.

Meanwhile scammers, particularly those who pretend to sell vehicles online but then flee with the buyers’ money, were also still active this week.

Residents are warned not to pay money for cars online that they have not yet seen in real life. In most of the cases, they see cars advertised at incredibly low prices on social media.

Once they enquire about the vehicle, the “seller” asks for a fee of a few thousand rand to secure the vehicle for them. The buyer is asked to pay this money into the seller’s bank account.

The seller then often goes quiet and the buyer realise that they have lost of their money to a scam. In some cases, the “seller”, however, asks for the whole purchase amount before the vehicle can be released. Only then do they disappear with the victim’s money.

It is almost impossible to catch the criminals as they immediately withdraw the money and pay it over into other bank accounts and from there into even more bank accounts, none of which belongs to them. The owners of these bank accounts are usually residents of the Western Cape.

Anyone who lets another person use the first person’s bank account to have money paid into it, and then allows the other person to withdraw the money or just pays it over to them again, usually for a fee, is also guilty of fraud and can be prosecuted on this criminal offence.

People who do this are aiding the scammers.