Hi! So I was searching around on the internet and found an ad on an australian ad site about male and female pug pups for sale saying to contact him/her back on her email. Anyway I contacted this person and this is the email I got:
Hello there,
Thanks for your interest in this lovely male and female babies i have for re homing. They are Nine (9) weeks old.They are still available and ready to go .A KC registered with all shots,vaccines and vet records updated.They have great personality and good temperaments with kids and other pets. I would like to ask you some few questions
if you do not mind.
1….Where are you located precisely?
2…Which sex are you interested in male or female?
3…How soon do you want the puppy?
We live in ____(I erased this btw :),but if you can’t come up to _____ then i will have to arrange for a home delivery service that will get the puppy delivered over to your home without any problems and that will cost you in total $300 for the puppy including the delivery charges and papers and both will cost you $500,i have also attach to you some recent pictures of my babies and hope you like them okay. so kindly get back to me with the details bellow;
FULL NAMES………………………………………..
YOUR CITY……………………………………………
POST CODE……………………………………………….
YOUR HOME ADDRESS…………………………………..
HOME NUMBERS………………………………………….
MOBILE NUMBERS……………………………………..
^^I already sent my info off :l
These information will be taken along with the Puppy and all it’s papers to the delivery agency and the delivery agency will later contact you regarding the payment and when the Puppy will be delivered over to your home without any problem.The $300 you will be paying will be for the puppy and the delivery charges including the papers.Puppies also come with the following papers;
# Health guarantee
# Vaccine record
# A KC registration papers
# Microchip Registration
# Pedigree
# Nutrition supplement
# Traveling Crate
Regards and waiting for your kind respond.
This person is currently in Tasmania and I live in South Australia around the edge. Hes asked for my nearest airport which I havent given to him yet. They sent be four pics each of the male and female, The male on a space blanket or something and the female was in a picnic basket, no shots of the household really and both look like they dont have any traces of other dog in them so purebred maybe. Does it sound like a scam? If so please state why it sounds like a scam. thanks
@Lady: I heard that dogs could be sold by anyone at the earlist age of 8 weeks so 9 weeks sounds alright.
So if it is a scam and he has all my info whats the worst that could happen to me?
Ok its a scam, hes got my info (im 13), what can I do the prevent him from stealing my indentity and what else do I need to do?
100% scam.
There is no dog.
There are stolen pictures of someone else’s dog.
There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money.
The next email will be from another of the scammer’s fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "pet shipping company" and will demand you pay for shipping fees, in cash, and only by Western Union or moneygram.
Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.
Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his ‘potential sucker’ list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.
You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.
Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don’t bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn’t worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.
Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.
If you google "Cameroon pet scam", "fake puppy sale scam Western Union" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near-victims of this type of scam. There are sites where you can look up pictures and find the site or sites where the scammer stolen the cute pictures of the puppies.
watch out. they have your address. they KNOW where you stayed.
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Seems legit to me, and you have their address so it’d be a stupid scam. I think you should trust them
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yes this is a scam
this has been going around like this since i got a computer
byb/mills are the only ones to let small breeds go before 12 weeks
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This is why you never ever buy anything from online let alone give someone you’re entire information, you could of searched up on Google for puppies where you live and alot of info would of came up
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It’s a VERY well known SCAM that’s been around for ages. I already told you it was a SCAM when you asked this the first time. Do yourself a favor and Google…….Cameroon/Nigeria Puppy Scams, and you will see what I’m talking about.
Here, I did it for you.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Cameroon+puppy+scams&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
Add: What’s the worst that could happen? IDENTITY THEFT!
Add #2: Tell your Mother about the whole thing and also show her this question that you asked here!
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Sounds fishy
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Yes, it’s a scam.
The same one happens in the UK – the owner says that they are from Kirkwall, Scotland – which is a remote Island that no one would really be able to get to. They always ask for $300/£300.
I’ve heard people who have taken it a step further and received a money order for an African address.
see an example here –
http://www.greatdanewebsite.co.uk/Puppy-Scams.asp
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do some investigating create a new email address and send them an email.
just ask if they have any puppies left.. dont give any info about your location yet
if she says yes say you live in tassie when would you be able to come view the pupps and pick one up. if they dont reply then u have trapped them and they are scammers
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It’s a scam..and the worst that can happen is he can take over your Identity, and ruin your credit..for life.
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100% SCAM
There is NO puppy – there is a scammer who wants your personal info to steal your identity. They will then want you to pay $300 for "shipping" for a puppy that does not exist – and I bet they wanted money through Western Union or Moneygram
Want to prove it’s a scam – write back to say that you spoke to your uncle in Tasmania who has offered to go and pick up the puppy for you, pay them in cash, and he will bring the puppy with him when he comes to visit your family in a few weeks. Ask for their address – then just wait for the excuses
Not to mention that no dogs in Australia can have AKC registration – AKC means American Kennel Club and only applies to dogs born and registered in the United States. These scammers don’t even know the difference
An IP lookup of the emails will show they are NOT in Tasmania http://aruljohn.com/info/howtofindipaddress/
Contact your local police, non-emergency number, to report this and your best bet is to cut off ALL communication with this scammer
Never agree to buy any puppy that you cannot pick up in person from the breeder so you can see how and where the puppy was raised and meet the mother and littermates. You also want to make sure the puppy is healthy and responsive.
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The scam is that they get your money and you get no puppy. Read the following info on the scams
http://www.puplistings.com/pages.php?page=8
http://www.akc.org/news/index.cfm?article_id=3220
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This is how identity theft happens.
Next thing you know when you turn 18 you’ll get turned down for a car loan because your credit record shows you have three mortgages and a bankruptcy even though you were not legally old enough to enter into those kind of contracts when they started lol.
Time to tell your parents.
[Add] My brother was unable to file unemployment because ELEVEN other people had jobs all over the country in his name. The unemployment office apparently thought he could hold down 11 full time jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and Washington all at the same time.
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no i think. one of my friends use this. he feel easy and secured.
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http://www.chargeanywheredirect.com/
100% scam.
There is no dog.
There are stolen pictures of someone else’s dog.
There is only a scammer trying to steal your hard-earned money.
The next email will be from another of the scammer’s fake names and free email addresses pretending to be the "pet shipping company" and will demand you pay for shipping fees, in cash, and only by Western Union or moneygram.
Western Union and moneygram do not verify anything on the form the sender fills out, not the name, not the street address, not the country, not even the gender of the receiver, it all means absolutely nothing. The clerk will not bother to check ID and will simply hand off your cash to whomever walks in the door with the MTCN# and question/answer. Neither company will tell the sender who picked up the cash, at what store location or even in what country your money walked out the door. Neither company has any kind of refund policy, money sent is money gone forever.
Now that you have responded to a scammer, you are on his ‘potential sucker’ list, he will try again to separate you from your cash. He will send you more emails from his other free email addresses using another of his fake names with all kinds of stories of great jobs, lottery winnings, millions in the bank and desperate, lonely, sexy singles. He will sell your email address to all his scamming buddies who will also send you dozens of fake emails all with the exact same goal, you sending them your cash via Western Union or moneygram.
You could post up the email address and the emails themselves that the scammer is using, it will help make your post more googlable for other suspicious potential victims to find when looking for information.
Do you know how to check the header of a received email? If not, you could google for information. Being able to read the header to determine the geographic location an email originated from will help you weed out the most obvious scams and scammers. Then delete and block that scammer. Don’t bother to tell him that you know he is a scammer, it isn’t worth your effort. He has one job in life, convincing victims to send him their hard-earned cash.
Whenever suspicious or just plain curious, google everything, website addresses, names used, companies mentioned, phone numbers given, all email addresses, even sentences from the emails as you might be unpleasantly surprised at what you find already posted online. You can also post/ask here and every scam-warner-anti-fraud-busting site you can find before taking a chance and losing money to a scammer.
If you google "Cameroon pet scam", "fake puppy sale scam Western Union" or something similar you will find hundreds of posts from victims and near-victims of this type of scam. There are sites where you can look up pictures and find the site or sites where the scammer stolen the cute pictures of the puppies.
References :
http://scam.com
http://scamwarners.com
http://tineye.com