Most people think they'd never be foolish enough to fall for a scam, but in reality, scammers are using increasingly clever tricks to throw their victims off guard.
Take, for instance, a recent scam reported by a Vernon Parish resident who said he'd posted an ad in the Thrifty Nickel, which was then posted online. The scammer simply answered the ad, throwing the victim off guard by using a telecommunication relay service and pretending to be deaf. The scammer sent the victim money orders, much more than the cost of the pet, and then asked the victim to cash them and forward the money on to a third party who would accept responsibility for picking up the pet.
"We've been told all our lives that money orders are the safest way to handle money through the mail," said the victim, who preferred to remain anonymous. "I won't ever use another money order."
The fine print on the back of a money order, in fact, puts the responsibility of making sure there are funds behind the money order onto the bearer.
This particular scam is a spin off of the Nigerian check scam, said Bradley Marr, a detective with the Sabine Parish Sheriff's Office where the crime was reported.
"It's impossible to track the money," Marr said, explaining that the majority of the con artists are living outside of the United States in Canada, England and Africa. "It's virtually impossible to catch them."
"I've dealt with every federal agency i know to deal with," Marr continued. "There's no way of tracking where (the scams) come from." In most instances, the scammers use fake addresses or drop boxes or have enlisted someone, who usually is ignorant of what is going on, to receive packages and forward them on.
The con can also be achieved using cashier's checks or personal checks.
"This particular scam, to the T, has only happened once here," Marr said. In that instance, the victim caught on before he became liable for any money.
"It's the only crime I know where the victim is also the suspect," Marr added, explaining that cashing the forged or counterfeit document makes the victim the criminal. "That's what people don't understand about banks. The bank is never responsible for the document. The person bringing it in has the whole responsibility."
The con artists play on the emotions of their victims, Marr said. In this case, guilt and sympathy were the primary factor in convincing the victim to cash the money order and forward the funds. Greed can also play a part in the process. Often, the scammers convince the victims that they have come into a sum of money.
Since the crime involves a relatively low sum of money, the FBI and most local police can't or won't investigate it, another factor in favor of the con artist.  The low amount doesn't warrant the expense of the investigation.
Head teller of Sabine State Bank's Leesville branch, Kathy Gstalter, has found one way to stop fraud at the teller window. 
Inspired by the plight of a lady who'd lost several thousand hard-earned and not easily replaced dollars, Gstalter took steps to help prevent others from losing thousands of dollars.
"We can't give everybody the third degree," Gstalter said. But she and the other tellers could provide pertinent information for customers, she decided, and with her supervisor's blessing, took the FBI's poster about fraud, printed copies and had them framed to hang at each teller window.
"It's cut the branch's losses by about half," said Anne Causey, assistant vice president of the bank.
In addition, the posters act as a deterrent for those who aren't victims, Gstalter said.
The posters have been up for about two years now and customers do read them and ask questions, she added. In addition, the posters have encouraged the tellers to be more vigilant.
Another way to battle fraud is to utilize the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). A victim can visit the center's web site and report the crime. If the crime's factors match up with factors of other crimes, and the dollar amount of all of them equal a sum the FBI is willing to investigate, then the criminals can be pursued.  
“The Internet presents a wealth of opportunity for would be criminals to prey on unsuspecting victims," said FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director James E. Finch. What is unknown is how often this type of activity goes unreported. "Filing a complaint through IC3 is the best way to alert law enforcement authorities of Internet crime."
According to the FBI's web site, IC3 was established as a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) to serve as a means to receive Internet related criminal complaints and to further research, develop and refer the criminal complaints to federal, state, local, or international law enforcement and/or regulatory agencies for any investigation they deem to be appropriate.
Some of the most common Internet and fraud schemes include: 
Advance-Fee Fraud Schemes: The victim is required to pay significant fees in advance of receiving a substantial amount of money or merchandise.  The fees are usually passed off as taxes, or processing fees, or charges for notarized documents. The victim pays these fees and receives nothing in return.  Perhaps the most common example of this type of fraud occurs when a victim is expecting a large payoff for helping to move millions of dollars out of a foreign country. The victim may also believe he has won a large award in a nonexistent foreign lottery.
Business/Employment Schemes: Typically incorporate identity theft, freight forwarding, and counterfeit check schemes. The fraudster posts a help-wanted ad on popular Internet job search sites.  Respondents are required to fill out an application wherein they divulge sensitive personal information, such as their date of birth and Social Security number.  The fraudster uses that information to purchase merchandise on credit.  The merchandise is sent to another respondent who has been hired as a freight forwarder by the fraudster.  The merchandise is then reshipped out of the country.  The fraudster, who has represented himself as a foreign company, then pays the freight forwarder with a counterfeit check containing a significant overage amount.  The overage is wired back to
the fraudster, usually in a foreign country, before the fraud is discovered. 
Counterfeit Check Schemes: A counterfeit or fraudulent cashier’s check or corporate check is utilized to pay for merchandise.  Often these checks are made out for a substantially larger amount than the purchase price.  The victims are instructed to deposit the check and return the overage amount, usually by wire transfer, to a foreign country.  Because banks may release funds from a cashier's check before the check actually clears, the victim believes the check has cleared and wires the money as instructed.  One popular variation of this scam involves the purchase of automobiles listed for sale in various Internet classified advertisements. The sellers are contacted about purchasing the autos and shipping them to a foreign country.  The buyer, or person acting on behalf of a buyer, then sends the seller a cashier's check for an amount several thousand dollars over the price of the vehicle.  The seller is directed to deposit the check and wire the excess back to the buyer so they can pay the shipping charges.  Once the money is sent, the buyer typically comes up with an excuse for canceling the purchase, and attempts to have the rest of the money returned.  Although the seller does not lose the vehicle, he is typically held responsible by his bank for depositing a counterfeit check.  
Credit/Debit Card Fraud: Is the unauthorized use of a credit/debit card to fraudulently obtain money or property.  Credit/debit card numbers can be stolen from unsecured web sites or can be obtained in an identity theft scheme.
Freight Forwarding/Reshipping: The receiving and subsequent reshipping of on-line ordered merchandise to locations usually abroad.  Individuals are often solicited to participate in this activity in chat rooms, or through Internet job postings.  Unbeknownst to the reshipper, the merchandise has been paid for with fraudulent credit cards.   
 Identity Theft: Identity theft occurs when someone appropriates another's personal information without their knowledge to commit theft or fraud.  Identity theft is a vehicle for perpetrating other types of fraud schemes.  Typically, the victim is led to believe they are divulging sensitive personal information to a legitimate business, sometimes as a response to an e-mail solicitation to update billing or membership information, or as an application to a fraudulent Internet job posting.
Investment Fraud: An offering that uses false or fraudulent claims to solicit investments or loans or that provides for the purchase, use or trade of forged or counterfeit securities.
Non-delivery of Goods/Services: Merchandise or services that were purchased or contracted by individuals on-line are never delivered.  
Online Auction/Retail: The fraud attributable to the misrepresentation of a product advertised for sale through an Internet auction site or the non-delivery of products purchased through an Internet auction site.
 Phony Escrow Services: In an effort to persuade a wary Internet auction participant, the fraudster will propose the use of a third-party escrow service to facilitate the exchange of money and merchandise. The victim is unaware the fraudster has spoofed a legitimate escrow service.  The victim sends payment or merchandise to the phony escrow and receives nothing in return.  
Ponzi/Pyramid Schemes: Investors are enticed to invest in this fraudulent scheme by the promises of abnormally high profits. However, no investments are actually made by the so called “investment firm.” Early investors are paid returns with the investment capital received from subsequent investors.  he system eventually collapses and investors do not receive their promised dividends and lose their initial investment. 
Spoofing/Phishing: A technique whereby a fraudster pretends to be someone else's e-mail or web site. This is typically done by copying the web content of a legitimate web site to the fraudster's newly created fraudulent web site.  Phishing refers to the scheme whereby the perpetrators use the spoofed web sites in an attempt to dupe the victim into divulging sensitive information, such as passwords, credit card and bank account numbers. The victim, usually via e-mail, is provided with a hyper link that directs him/her to a fraudster's web site. This fraudulent web site’s name (Uniform Resource Locator) closely resembles the true name of the legitimate business. The victim arrives at the fraudulent web site and is convinced by the sites content that they are in fact at the company’s legitimate web site and are tricked into divulging sensitive personal information.  Spoofing and phishing are done to further perpetrate other schemes, including identity theft and auction fraud.
If you believe you may have fallen victim to one or more of these scams and wish to report it, please file a complaint with the FBI at wwww.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx.