From the start, Taffy Gleason suspected something was amiss.

After placing an ad on Craigslist to sell a travel trailer, Gleason, the executive director of Bend’s Community Center, received an e-mail response, in stilted English, offering to pay the full $2,200 for the trailer.

A check would come in the mail, the e-mail said, and Gleason was to cash it and use the leftover funds to pay the driver who would pick up the trailer.

Gleason wasn’t buying it, and Tony Green, a spokesman for the Oregon Attorney General’s Office, says she made the right decision.

The check was likely bogus, Green said, a classic Nigerian money transfer scam.

“You get sent a check, and sometimes the pretext is you’re a mystery shopper for them, sometimes it’s an international lottery and you’ve won some money,” he said. “Then they send what appears to be a real check and want you to return some percentage of it.”

The check bounces, but not before the victim has given some of the money to the scam artist.

Green said in 2008 at least 132 Oregonians lost a total of $1.2 million in the international money transfer scams.

Gleason said Bend’s Community Center often sells items on Craigslist and has come across people who say they’ll put a check in the mail and then show up at the center to pick up the goods.

“We say no way,” she said. “Cash only.”

In this case, Gleason sent an e-mail back refusing to pay the driver.

“That was the last we heard from them,” she said. “Then the next thing I know, I get this check for $4,900.”

The check was from an Everett, Wash., company called Kalani Packaging Inc. There was no paperwork in the envelope, and the return address on the envelope was a man in Tempe, Ariz. Gleason called the company.

“They said that somebody had stolen the company’s identification and they’ve been dealing with this for months,” she said. “Hundreds of fake checks had been distributed, and they’ve had hundreds of calls on this.”

Using a real company’s information isn’t unheard of.

Earlier this year, Green said, several Oregon legislators received letters from someone claiming he was an autograph collector. The letters asked for photos of the elected officials, preferably signed and including their official titles.

“Then they get your letterhead and your signature and they use you to try to scam people,” Green said. “Never cash a check if you don’t know where it’s coming from. Never send anybody any money unless you’ve dealt with them before or you’re absolutely certain you know who you’re dealing with. And frankly, be suspicious of anything that looks too good to be true.”