Made an online sales transaction? There’s a safe place for that (2 photos)

Sault Ste. Marie OPP announced the launch of Project Safe Trade at the detachment’s headquarters at 742 Great Northern Rd. Thursday.

The project encourages people to complete purchases which they have made online in the OPP’s parking lot facing Great Northern Road and Lukenda Drive, at designated parking spots marked with signs reading ‘Internet Purchase Exchange Zone.’ 

The signs are also marked with OPP and City of Sault Ste. Marie logos, with plans to paint the surface of the designated parking spots with Project Safe Trade colours in the spring of 2018.  

The project is designed to discourage sketchy online characters from victimizing others, and encouraging those wary of online transactions to meet in a safe place, with law enforcement officers nearby at a key intersection of the city. 

“Bottom line is, it’s providing another tool in our toolkit, a safe place for people to come and exchange goods as a result of an internet transaction. Hopefully by having a perceived presence of law enforcement, then we may curtail some activities that may be illegal,” Sgt. Monique Baker said.

“It’s taking it out of other parking lots, other areas where it may not be quite so safe for people to do their transactions and bringing it to a public place in front of our detachment,” Baker said, adding some people are too trusting and will allow strangers to bring merchandise to their homes.

Baker said “a lot of people, I want to stress, do use online auctions in good faith, however, you really don’t know who the person is, they’re strangers.”

“We’ve also got a lot of young people, teens, that use these online exchanges and auctions so if you’ve got them meeting strangers in parking lots, that has the potential to perhaps turn into something illegal. It’s a good way for parents to be confident their teens who do these auctions online have a safe place to go to do these exchanges,” Baker said.

95 per cent of online frauds and illegal transactions are not reported, Baker added.

“A lot of times people feel embarrassed and don’t report them.”

Baker said the idea for the project stemmed from the murder of Tim Bosma.

Bosma, of Ancaster, Ont., was murdered May 6, 2013. He was abducted and killed by two men who wanted his pickup truck after he advertised it on the internet. The two men, Dellen Millard and Mark Smich, were convicted in 2016 of murdering Bosma.

Project Safe Trade is also part of the 2-1-1 directory of community services, Baker said.

The Sault OPP detachment is the first to set up Project Safe Trade in northeastern Ontario, the project originating in southern Ontario, said Staff Sgt. Michael Maville, Sault OPP detachment commander.

Baker said the concept of Project Safe Trade runs in other communities (but not necessarily under the same name) elsewhere in Canada under the RCMP and in the United States.