The victim was on Dark Lane at around 4pm when he was approached by a man who offered him the i-Pad. A price of £200 was agreed and the men drove to a nearby cash machine on Commercial Street where the £200 was exchanged for a black laptop bag that the victim believed contained the i-pad.
It was not until after the victim left the area and opened the bag, that he discovered it contained some potatoes. The suspect was a chubby white man in his forties who had dark blonde hair and an Irish accent. Police are urging people not to give money to strangers for goods that they have not checked or even seen.
PC Teresa McCarter of the Batley NPT said: “It should be common sense to check that you are getting what you pay for but, as a similar incident to this one in Birstall took place in the summer, we are warning people to be wary of accepting deals that seem to be too good to be true.”
2 comments:
A fool and his money are easily parted; though at least this guy paid half price and got some useful spuds out of the transaction, unlike the fools who buy ipads.
The old pig in a poke trick is the oldest con in the book, bar none. And it's still very common.
Laptops and tablets have caused a resurgence in it's popularity of late. I've heard of crooks substituting spuds, bottled water and even (weirdly) a poorly executed fake iPad made from wood in the last twelve months alone.
The con is probably even more common than reported cases would suggest. If a man in a pub or on a street corner offered you a high value item for a fraction of it's retail value you would probably be suspicious. So would almost anybody. So it follows that people falling for these transactions suspect that the goods are probably stolen. Because of this and because they don't want to admit to being foolish some people probably don't report the crime.
Post a Comment