Amherst, N.Y. (WBEN) - The scene plays out in parking lots, public places and even at private homes each and every day across Western New York.
One person has something to sell and the other is seeking to buy.
And law enforcement is concerned.
Local police departments are stressing that citizens should exercise caution when meeting up with people via online sites looking to buy items that you have for sale, like through Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.
Recently, Amherst Police have issued a Crime Watch for two suspects who have been using Facebook Marketplace to steal items that sellers have for sale.
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"We've received a few reports of people that are selling items, or in some cases, purchasing items over these internet marketplaces," says Captain Chris Meyer of the Amherst Police Department.
"Like any other private exchange, there's always the possibility that someone has ill intent and is just there to try to either steal the property and or steal the money from the person that's looking to buy the property."
Luckily for some Western New Yorkers, some local police departments now have safe spaces near their offices for conducting these transactions.
In Amherst it's known as the "internet exchange safety zone."
"There's a spot and it's designated in our parking lot. They can utilize an area in our front lobby as well, to conduct an internet exchange," said Captain Meyer.
"If you're buying or purchasing or selling something, you could meet at that location, there's 24/7 video of the surveillance of the area. And you can actually walk in and notify our headquarter staff that you're going to be meeting someone in order to conduct one of these exchanges."
Amherst isn't the only police department with designated spots for online business. The Town of Cheektowaga has a spot at their police headquarters as well, located at 3223 Union Road.
"It's no different than back in the day when the newspaper classified ads would be full of people selling things privately to other private citizens," said Cheektowaga Police Chief Brian Gould.
"We have a spot in the front of our police station that's marked as a safe place for online sales, there's a street sign up there, it's right in the fire lane of our police station."
If you have items you can't move or are still looking to conduct business outside of these spots, Chief Gould says exercise great caution by verifying who these people are and have a friend with you during the transaction.
"You always want to have someone there with you. Try to somehow verify the person, make sure you know who they are. Worst case scenario is that when they do show up to your house, even something as simple as writing down the license plate of the vehicle that they came in would be something that would be helpful to us as police, should the sale go bad or something happened while they're at your house. That would at least give us something to be able to follow up on."
The City of Tonawanda also have spots to conduct business. You can find a list of other safe spaces here.