LAKEWOOD, Colo. — She wanted to put a down payment on a house in Lakewood and decided to sell her Rolex watch. But she ended up losing the watch and $8,000.
Andi Davis thought she was selling the Rolex watch she posted on Craiglist to a man captured on surveillance cameras at a Lakewood Starbucks.
The man might have victims across the country.
The woman had just gotten the watch in a divorce settlement and was trying to start a new chapter in her life.
But even though she has lots of experience buying and selling on Craigslist, she got taken by a scam artist.
“It’s just kind of a sickening feeling, ” she said. “This is one that will meet you show you the cash and switch it. I mean it was crazy.
“I’ve been doing this for 10 years. I have an Ebay account selling things on Craigslist. I thought I did everything right.”
They met inside the Starbucks last week where the well-dressed man with a British accent looked at the watch with a jeweler’s eyepiece and agreed to show her his money.
That’s when the woman made what police say is a major mistake when she agreed to leave the Starbucks and go with the man outside to count the money.
“We go into my car and he hands me the envelope and it’s a big wad it’s probably mostly 20s and 50s but it’s $8,000,” the woman said.
Then he told her he wanted to have the watch appraised by a professional jeweler.
“So he takes the envelope back from me and he said I want to tape it up so that you don’t decide to take a 20 or so out of the envelope and in the process he must have switched,” the woman said.
He left her with another envelope containing a $100 bill and a bunch of $1 bills.
“They can appear very professional and very much on the up and up,” Lakewood Police Department spokesman Steve Davis said.
“If you want to meet somebody and pull some kind of transaction or conduct some kind of a transaction, make it as public as you can.”
“I want this guy to get caught and when I googled it and I saw that the same thing happened to a gentleman in Chicago, I wondered if it was the same guy,” the woman said.
The man in Chicago recently fell victim to an identical crime with a Rolex involving a man fitting the same description.
And police warn that he might be working the Denver area trying to meet other victims.
Anyone with information is asked to call Lakewood police.