I am an animal rescuer and regularly post my animals that are up for adoption on Craigslist.org, Petfinder.com as well as anyplace I think I can help find them a good home.
My inbox is consistanty filled with responses from Religious leaders, businessmen from other countries, doctors from other states, and the bizarre list goes on. I also see the same thing in a new variation (the English Bulldog puppies were up here recently) now posted on the sites with pets up for adoption. Anyone posting their animals probably gets the same thing. The scam is always the same, they want all of your personal inforamtion first. Then any variation of sending you a payment for the "sale of pet" and shipping of "pet". You are then supposed to give someone the "extra" from the payment. Hmmm.
One would think if they are going to pull that kind of a scam they would find someone proficient in the English language to start. Possibly even reading your posting to refer directly to your animal.
I have written to the State Attorney General in several different states to inquire about how to stop this. They responded that while they are aware of it, it is not illegal to post/respond the way they are.
I imagine the law gets broken when the funding source is not legitimate and the person receiving the funds winds up with insufficient funds on the deposit or whatever, and by then they are long gone.
I do not know what to do to stop this. It is frustrating and hinders our ability to place our animals in need into quality homes.
Has anyone been a victim of this? Does anyone have any ideas for how to curb this madness? I currently just put all the responses in a folder or report them as spam.
I feel like it is hard enough to help the animals in our care without ruthless scam artists gutting us of the meager funds we have for what we are doing. Thank you for reponding and/or reading this. I am happy to forward any of the emails I have saved and maybe we can create a database of email addresses or track them somehow. I am not savvy at that kind of thing but I learn fast and am willing to help.
Thank you.