Edinburgh crime: Fife woman claims she was scammed out of bag worth over £1,000 by two men from Edinburgh

Geo Real put her Gucci bag, for which she paid £1,750 last June, on Facebook Marketplace and said it had never been used.

Her asking price for the bag was £1,500, and a man using the page showed interest in buying it.

"The guy bargained for it, and I brought down the price,” said Ms Real.

"So last Wednesday, he came round to buy it.

"I was running late, and he was at least half an hour early, so I was already rushing and everything.

"I never thought it would be a scam – I thought it would be this guy and a girlfriend.”

Instead, two men turned up saying they were from Edinburgh and were there to collect the bag.

Ms Real let them in and took them through to her living room and she described how the two started a conversation – a move she thinks was trying to build her trust.

"They gave me their phone to put in my sort code and account number. They did it right in front of me,” she said.

"The money did not appear in my account, they said it was because it was from an Irish bank account, and so it could take a few hours to come through.”

She now believes they used a fake banking app to make her believe that the money had been transferred.

Ms Real and her husband began to feel nervous about the two strangers in their house, after their close friend had been the victim of a violent crime.

"I had a feeling something was wrong,” she continued, “I asked if they were able to ring the bank.

“The guy then said that I was making a big fuss for the sake of a bag.”

She ended up asked for their number so she could contact them if there was a problem, and the men left the house with the bag.

The money never arrived in her account.

After reporting it to the police, Ms Real took to Facebook to see if anyone else had had a similar experience says she found several people in the Edinburgh area who had been through something similar.

She said she now wants to raise awareness so no one else has to go through what she has.

She believes that the scammers are targeting items online that are worth substantial amounts of money, rather products that cost lower amounts.

"I know I’m not going to see my item again. When it happened, I was sleepless, just so stressed out. I’d lost my money,” she said.

"I’m only working part time at the moment. I’m a full time student.

"Honestly, I felt like an idiot. I just felt really disgusted. I felt sick. It’s put me off selling completely.”

A Police Scotland spokesperson commented: “Around 10.05pm on Wednesday, 16 February, 2022, we received a report of an incident of fraud in Dunfermline.

“Enquiries are ongoing.”

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