WILTON — A local man’s ad on Craigslist drained him, or his bank, of $2,500, but he’s still got his hot water heater.

The unidentified man is the second resident in recent months to fall prey to scammers, Wilton police Lt. E. Page Reynolds said this week. The other thought he was bailing his grandson out of jail in Tennessee, when he was actually serving in Afghanistan.

The victims’ losses total $5,500, Reynolds said.

The lieutenant said once money is sent through Western Union and collected by someone, who most likely is using a fake name and identification, there’s not much local police can do other than warn people.

In the most recent incident, the man selling the water heater got a bite from someone offering to pay $100 more than the $350 asking price. After the two negotiated the sale via text messages and e-mails, the phony buyer sent the man a check for $2,950 and asked him to cash it, keep $450 and send $2,500 via Western Union to a moving company in Illinois that was in the Wilton area and would pick it up for him, Reynolds said.

When the check arrived by UPS — the buyer didn’t use the U.S. Postal Service to avoid committing a federal crime — the man took it to his local bank, Reynolds said. The bank cashed it and sent the $2,500 before the check cleared. Later, the bank notified him the check was no good, the officer said.

Reynolds said there’s a dispute now over who will take the loss, the bank or the man.

Earlier this summer, another Wilton resident received a call from a bogus sheriff in Tennessee who said he had arrested the man’s grandson, who needed $3,000 for bail. The grandfather knew his grandson was serving in Afghanistan, Reynolds said, but the phony sheriff was so convincing that the grandfather sent the money. 

The next day, the Wilton man’s daughter visited him and he told her about bailing her son out of jail. She responded that her son was in Afghanistan and that it sounded like the call was a scam, the officer said.

The grandparent scam is not a new one, according to Paula Fleming, vice president of communications and marketing for the regional office of the Better Business Bureau in Boston. The agency has received complaints nationwide on this type of scam.

“The BBB has recently received reports about grandparents . . . who thought they were aiding their grandchildren by providing money for an emergency situation but were actually in fact giving thousands of dollars to Canadian con artists,” she said.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre has seen an increase in these complaints, nearly 350 since the start of this year with half reported in July and August.

Along with verifying the story by calling the grandchild or checking with family members, the BBB also advises not honoring any request to wire money through Western Union or MoneyGram. This should be a “red flag” and a tip-off that the call could be a scam, she said.

“Funds sent via wire transfer are hard to track once received by scammers and are usually not recoverable by law enforcement or banking officials,” she added.

abryant@sunjournal.com