Thieves using the anonymity of classified advertisements in newspapers have struck again, this time swiping thousands of dollars from a man who made a downpayment on what turned out to be an imaginary car.

Fareed Khan, of St Mary's Village, Moruga, said he paid $3,500 as a downpayment for a Nissan B-15 Sentra, but the "owner" was never seen again.

And investigations by Constable Ramdial found that the number plates on the car Khan saw really belonged to a Nissan Almera.

The emerging con was raised by Chaguanas Mayor Suruj Rambachan at a crime meeting held in Felicity, Chaguanas, on Thursday night.

On two other occasions this week, people responding to classified ads had been tricked.

In Chaguanas, a man who went to a house at Balmoral Park for a "massage" was tied up, beaten and robbed of his laptop. Police raided the house and arrested a woman and two men who also gave massages to other men.

In the other incident, Brian Harricharan carried $60,000 to St John's Road, Claxton Bay, on Tuesday to pay a man for a car he saw for sale in the newspaper. There was no car but a man with a gun who took his money.

Of the classified ads about escort and massage services, Rambachan said newspapers had to "adopt some level of morality and stop publishing these personal ads (because) bandits are using them as a means of luring people to beat and rob them".