Police today warned of a scam that duped a local family into paying rent for a Kailua home to a person who did not own the property.

The house is owned by a woman on the Mainland who had no knowledge that the local family had moved into her home, police said.

The scam apparently originated in Nigeria and used rental information from an online ad placed by the homeowner, police said.

She had placed her ad on the Web site militarybyowner.com. The information was copied by the scammers and placed on Craigslist, a separate Web site, police said.

The scam was discovered when the owner, Elene Tzetzos, arrived in Kailua on Saturday night to check on the home and discovered that the lock to the front door had been changed.

Honolulu police in Kailua said they are not investigating further because the perpetrators appear to be in Nigeria and they have no jurisdiction.