Whittlesea Police is launching a initiative to help tackle marketplace buy, swap and sell thefts in the municipality.
The Safe Sites project will operate across three 24-hour police stations in Epping, Mill Park and Mernda, and will provide locals with a safe place to make online marketplace deals.
Whittlesea Inspector Chris Allen said the idea stemmed from an increase of reports relating to marketplace thefts.
“It was born out of some robberies that we noticed were occurring as a result of people selling items on platforms such as Gumtree and marketplace,” Inspector Allen said.
“And we saw that there were criminals that were taking advantage of that opportunity to actually meet up with people on the pretence that they were interested in buying the item but in fact turned out that they were turning up to steal the item.”
The designated safe zones will be outside police stations in the car park where the exchange of goods will be monitored by CCTV cameras.
Police are hoping locals will make use of the sites in order to protect themselves from being a victim of theft.
“We want the community to know about the areas that they can use if they’re going to be selling items online,” Inspector Allen said.
“And what we hope is that it will create an awareness for them to be able to use these in instances where they’re going to sell some items, so that they can actually be reassured that this is a nice safe area for them to do it.”
Inspector Allen warned people to better protect themselves online by being mindful of how much information they share.
“A lot of the time people sell stuff and it goes through without a hitch, but at times there are people out there that want to take advantage of the vulnerable or take advantage of people,” he said.
“We just ask that people take care.”
