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WEST VALLEY CITY -- A West Valley City woman thought she made a good deal when she sold a Nintendo Game Cube, several games and two bags of clothing to a woman this weekend for $50. It turns out, she'd been duped.
Natalie Zahne said there were a lot of people at her yard sale Saturday when the woman bartered her down for the items, handed her a $50 bill and left.
"She was a little nervous," Zahne said.
She believes the woman knew the bill was a fake and was in a hurry to get out of there once the deal was made.
Later on, when she reached into her pocket and pulled out the bill, Zahne said it neither felt nor looked right. She took it to a nearby convenience store to compare and realized almost immediately it was a fake.
"We kind of checked it up to the light, and there was no magnetic strip," she said. "The paper, when we looked really close, we couldn't see the detail blue and red threads."
Zahne has since done some research and found that similar cases have turned up in Colorado and Arizona.
Salt Lake County sheriff's Lt. Don Hutson said he hadn't heard of any such cases in the county's jurisdiction, but he said it would make sense for a crook to try to pass off a fake bill on someone who may not be as on guard for fake bills.
Zahne planned to check local websites to see if any of the items the woman bought show up for sale.
E-mail: mgiauque@ksl.com
