The Millarville Farmers' Market has recently taken to social media to let people know that someone is pretending to be them and are trying to scam people.

Melonie McKee, the Millarville Farmers' Market and Events Manager, says that this has been going on for a few years.

"What is happening is on lots of our posts on our social media, when it comes to mentioning about any of our markets happening, they are posting that there are spots available," explains McKee. "So, they're pretending to be the market manager or the society, telling them that there's spaces available, when in fact there is not. They send them a bunch of information via email, and they're asking them to pay through PayPal, etransfer, any kind of other obscure payment system. Which is a dead giveaway, also."

McKee says that the scammers are doing a decent job at making the scam seem legit.

"I had vendors that were sending me a screen shot of what they got as an email. It does look legit. So, it's tough for vendors." 

While the scammers are trying hard, McKee is diligent about sending out warnings about scammers, and the Alberta Farmers' Market Association also sends out warnings about scammers.

McKee says there have been about 20 people contacting them about these scammers, and only one person fell for the scam and sent them money.

"We're thankful that they contacted us, because they were suspicious."

The applications for the Millarville Farmers' Market are only available through the Millarville Racing and Agricultural Society website.

"It's through a program called MarketWurks and all communication either comes from myself, Chad Thomas, or Tylene Hay. Those are the only people associated with the Market as far as communications go. And we pay through that system as well or we give you other payment instruction on other ways to pay. But it's not PayPal or Venmo or any of those types of payments."

McKee says that it's best to reach out to the host of the market to double check if there are any suspicions about the payment.