Leboncoin: €2,000 fine for involvement in a scam

On 1 July, a resident of the Alençon urban community was fined €2,000 by the Alençon court. The 44-year-old woman was suspected of transferring money to Benin (a French-speaking country in West Africa). The money is believed to have come from scams carried out on the Leboncoin classified ads website, in which the forty-year-old allegedly took part. Here's a look at the case.

14245€ in profits for this forty-year-old from Alençon

This is not the first time that the classified ads site Leboncoin has been at the heart of controversy due to cybercriminals using the platform to steal money and information from their victims. This time, it is in Alençon, a French commune and prefecture of the Orne department in the Normandy region, that a new case has arisen, involving a woman in her forties.

For an entire year, a 44-year-old woman was able to collect €14,245 thanks to scams she allegedly took part in on the Leboncoin platform. The case involves victims who bought goods on the Leboncoin website but never received them.

Numerous suspicious transfers discovered following a complaint

It all began in December 2019, when a woman lodged a complaint about being the victim of a scam on Leboncoin. She explained that she had made two transfers, each for the sum of €469, with the aim of buying a camera that she had found on a Leboncoin advert. Unfortunately, she never received the camera or had any news of it.

The police investigated, and after studying the bank details of the so-called seller, they discovered that the bank accounts to which the money from the transaction had been transferred actually belonged to the defendant. They were then able to see from her bank statements that the woman had accumulated 14,245 euros in profits in less than a year through numerous transfers.

Money transfers via Western Union

There was nothing complicated about the methods used to carry out this scam. Once the sale was completed and the transfer received, the woman had to transfer the money to Benin. To do this, she used the Western Union money transfer platform. The Senegalese woman explained that she was able to keep 10% commission on the transfers. This would have enabled her to make ends meet.

The defendant was fined €2,000 by the Alençon court, including a suspended sentence of €1,800 for handling stolen goods. She will also have to pay €192 in compensation to the victim of the scam.

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To avoid all kinds of scams on online classified ad sites such as Leboncoin, it is essential that you secure your transactions between private individuals. To help you do this, Obvy, a secure payment method between private individuals, has been created to secure your transactions on these platforms.

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