An Okotokian is cautioning others of an apparent scam targetting local crafters.

Karin Nell, a local mother who's lived in Okotoks for about a year, caught wind of a few upcoming youth markets back in January.

Thinking it was a good chance for her teenage daughter to sell some of her crocheted wares, she booked a table for the February market and was told tables were available for future events, including in October and November.

Nell ended up attending the February market alone after her daughter got sick.

"It all went well, aside from the fact that it was very quiet. They promised a lot of advertising, I don't know if that happened, but it looked fine," she says.

Nell also booked a table in a Christmas market planned for November with the same organizers.

She began to hear word of another market planned for High River that was cancelled, with a few participants looking to contact the organizer.

Eventually, she sought to get in touch with the organizers herself in order to pay for her table but found the emails she sent were bouncing back.

Looking to social media, she also discovered the event pages had been deleted, and that all traces of the organizers and the events had seemingly been wiped from the internet completely.

Nell posted to a local Facebook group asking if anyone knew what happened and received several replies from people with similar experiences.

"There were at least five market days that I know of that would have been approximately 60 vendors at each market if it was booked full. A lot of people were affected."

She says she's also heard from people who were told tables were available at Chilifest and the Show N Shine, separate from the actual markets that were held there.

It should be noted that these markets were/are not connected to the artisan markets held by MarketSquare, which are organized in conjunction with the Town of Okotoks.

Nell describes the events as going under the names "Okotoks Youth Market" and "Okotoks Local Market."

She had paid for one table for the market she attended and had also sent money to sponsor a vendor after the organizers told her someone could not afford to pay for their table.

While she didn't lose much money to the alleged scammers, she says she does know of people who had put money down for multiple markets.

Several of the vendors have reached out to the RCMP, who are investigating these incidents.