A Winton woman lost $5,000 in an international scam, detectives with the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force reported Thursday.

Con artists snared the woman through an online classified advertisement on a local newspaper's Web site.

The woman's name was not released.

"She's a stay-at-home mom and was looking at ways to earn some money while she was watching her children," Detective John Mussotto said. "Two weeks ago, she saw a classified ad that said she could make money at home."

The woman saw the ad Sept. 14 while searching online versions of local newspapers, she told police.

The ad said "Work at home and make easy money" and had an e-mail address at the bottom, she said.

She responded; on Sept. 16, a man who said he works for Digitized Pro Inc., in Budapest, Hungary, contacted her. The company needed someone to collect and cash checks from American clients.

Checks would be mailed to her; she was instructed to deposit the checks in her account and then send Western Union money orders to an address in Budapest for the amount of the checks less 10 percent. That 10 percent was her payment.

Three checks totaling $5,898.71 arrived Sept. 18. They were all made payable to Maria Salas.

"I asked her if she thought it was strange that there would be a person named Maria Salas living in Hungary," Mussotto said. "She said it seemed to be such easy money that she didn't think about it."

Wednesday, the woman went to her bank to withdraw some cash and discovered she was overdrawn. All of the deposited checks had bounced.

She called the phone numbers her original contact had given her; they had been disconnected.

She then went to police, Mussotto said. He said detectives believe the scam artists placed ads in papers throughout the United States. He suspects they searched for newspapers with Internet sites.

The woman told officers she thought she found the ad in The Bee or the Merced Sun-Star, but was not sure. A search of ads at both sites did not turn up the advertisement.

Regardless of where she found the ad, consumers need to use common sense when replying to such offers, Mussotto said.

"I've said it a million times and will have to say it again," he said. "If it sounds too good to be true, it is."