The North Dakota Attorney General’s Office said this week it is working to shut down a scam operation posing as a Minot business.

Platinum Bay Motors had been using the address of a legitimate Minot business to scam customers around the country, according to the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection and Antitrust Division.

A California resident who emailed The Minot Daily News reported contacting Platinum Bay Motors to purchase a recreational vehicle. The customer became suspicious when asked to wire $12,500 without proof the company had the RV or was a legitimate business. Asked for a video walk through of the RV, the company representative told the customer the warehouse is under construction and the RV wasn’t accessible for a video. Additional attempts to call, text or email the company were unsuccessful, the customer said.

The company’s website listed a Bismarck phone number. The number recently changed, along with the address, now listed as Denver.

Elin Alm, director of the Consumer Protection and Antitrust Division, and Tonya Hetzler, an investigator in the division, said it is not unusual for their office to receive calls about websites for fake companies using North Dakota addresses.

“If the victims send money, they are not sending it to North Dakota,” Alm said, indicating the likelihood is those fake companies are overseas. That makes collection and refunds difficult.

Many of the victims of these scams, which appear to generate in North Dakota, are customers from other states, Alm said.

“We refer them to their own law enforcement agencies and their banks in hopes of trying to do something about the bank wires,” she said.

Even when websites are forced to shut down, it is not uncommon for another fake company to quickly take its place. In the case of the Minot property, Platinum Bay Motors was preceded by Iron Heavy Machinery. The property owner has been advised to watch for additional scams using that address.

“There hasn’t been much hassle on our part outside of a few people calling our office to inquire on something being sold on that site. Unfortunately, the hassle mostly remains on the people who are looking at their site to buy,” said Derek Bjornstad of Bismarck, with Chesak Seed House. Chesak Seed House’s Minot address was spoofed by the scam companies.

Platinum Bay Motors is not registered with the North Dakota Secretary of State, which is a red flag for consumers.

Other red flags are prices that are exceptionally low, deals that are too good to be true and refund policies that are better than a real business would offer. However, some scammers are exceptionally good at looking real, including creating dealership certificates and bills of sale that appear legitimate.

Some scammers go beyond using a legitimate company’s address and set up a fake website in the legitimate company’s name, using its address but routing calls to another phone number, Alm and Hetzler said. Shopping online becomes a “buyer beware” situation in those instances.

“You need to do the research and check multiple sources of information to verify, especially if you are buying from a business you know nothing about,” Alm said.