Tulsa Woman Warns Others After Online Sale Turns To Theft

You can open Facebook and scroll through an endless list of items for sale. It's a chance for someone to make a quick buck, but also a place where crooks look to potentially rip people off.

Experts say if you're going to do an online transaction, go to a safe place, like the parking lot of a police station to make it happen.

Waters said she recently put her husband’s Yamaha YZ125 dirt bike up for sale on Facebook and, in July, a teenager asked to buy it.

"He was telling us that he was interested, that he needed something reliable to ride around," said victim Siera Waters.

She said the story seemed so believable, but now she's still upset about what happened along Vandalia Avenue.

"We're trying to get him caught. Trying to get the bike back," she said.

Now, Waters is warning others.

"He had contacted us through Facebook with a fake account that he had been using," she said.

The teen suggested they meet in a school parking lot. Waters said when she and her husband got there, they saw a young man walk up. She said he asked to do a test run and even brought gas to put in the bike.

"We had asked him to test drive it here in the parking lot and then he had driven off down the road," she said.

The teen quickly vanished.

Waters said she found the bike for sale on other social media platforms.

Tulsa Police said, in these cases, it's best to find a secure place to meet up.

"Even in our police station parking lots, we say this is a safe place to come," Officer Jeanne Mackenzie said.

Waters and her husband are now left with a $2,000 loss and a tough lesson learned – a lesson police hope others take to heart.

"Do it in groups. Do it where there's a public place. Do it where there's video surveillance," Mackenzie said.