By Sheena Roszell

Jewellery scam surfacing in the Grande Prairie region

Aug 22, 2018 | 2:00 PM

A local jewellery store wants to warn people of a scam that’s happening now in the region where people are approaching others claiming they need money and selling their jewellery in exchange for cash.
 
The Director of Operations with Janina’s Jewellers says over the past few weeks they’ve had a number of people coming in to get their purchased jewellery checked to see how much it’s worth.  He says so far, every piece of jewellery they have checked has turned out to be worthless.
 
“It’s a scam that has now made its way to the Peace Region.  It was very common in Ontario and Quebec a few years ago,” he said. “(The apparent scammers) are working in groups, sometimes it’s a family, they have children with them.”
 
He says people are telling him it’s happening on local highways and in parking lots.
 
“They’ll say that their car is broken down and they need some gas money to get back to Calgary, Edmonton, or any other place.  The giving nature of people is to help out someone in need, so they’ll usually give $80, $50, whatever the amount is, and in return, they get this piece of jewellery and then when they come to get it validated they find that piece of jewellery is worth pennies.”
 
He says they’ve seen cases where people have paid upwards of $800 to $900 for this jewellery.
 
“Our nature is to help people out, so that’s what’s happening,” he explained. “Sometimes they’ll be on the highway as well and pretend to be broken down.  I actually talked to an individual a couple of days ago and he was out about $300.  There was a minivan that was parked on the side of a highway and that’s how they got him.”
 
EverythingGP has reached out to local RCMP to see how many cases have been reported to them and are waiting to hear back.