Puppy buying scam???

[dog dr]

need some advice guys, especially from those that sell pups. my wife got a call from a relay service for the hearing impaired tonight regarding one of her golden retriever pups. she then sent the person an email with more info about the litter. the following is the email she recieved in return:


Hi..
Thanks very much for your response. I would be buying puppy you have for sale so kindly reserve it for me. You have to bear with me that I called with relay service, its because am hearing impaired. I am sending you this email to make final reconfirmation of the puppy which am willing to buy for my son as his birthday present and I also want to let you know that payment will be by certified Check or Money Order. However, I want to alert you on the fact that you will be receiving the Check or Money Order this week or next week and payment will cover your cost and as well as the shipping cost to be paid to the person that will take care of the pickup in your house. So please as soon as you receive the payment, get it cashed immediately, deduct the money that accrues to you and send the remaining balance to the Head Office of the company that handles the shipment via Western union. More so, I will pay you an extra $100 if you can reserve this for me. So in view of the above, Here are some of the details I will need for final issuance of the Check or Money Order to you.
(1) Full Name
(2) Mailing address, no p.o.box please
(3) your direct telephone number both home and cell.?
{4} Acceptance of my offer
(5} Final asking price

Once you get back to me with all the above information, the check or money order will be issued out immediately and it will be sent to you.Finally i am making you a promise that the puppy will be taken Good care of and my children will be playing with the pup all the time and will make it just like a child and nutured like my friend,companion and pet at the same time,never lacking any care and love from me at any point,i will also send you pictures from time to time for you to see what love i it gets from me.

Regards



this sounds a bit like the scam that we have been warned about on this board and a couple others, but i am not sure what to make of it. what do you think?? does this deal sound legit or do you think something is fishy??

[h.q.s]

I have got that same email, no joke. I also get them saying stuff like " I will have my shippers pick them up, and I will send you a $2000 check, and just deposit the $500 and send teh rest back to me in cash, please be hopeful in our trust"

I don't fall for it for a second.

[R-Heaton]

Its a scam,,,, my buddy had it happen to him,,, he advertised on this board. It was weird from the get go,,, when the check finally got to him it was for $2,000 dollars,,, the pup was only $500,,,, needles to say the check didn't clear and he never heard from the person again. I think the scam was for him to take his own money $1500 and send it off to the shipper before the other check cleared or not cleared in his case. But same thing,,,, hearing impaired person on relay service from New Jersey I think.

[dirtdober]

SCAM ALERT! SCAM ALERT! SCAM ALERT! SCAM ALERT!

[Oggie]

I have got that same email, no joke. I also get them saying stuff like " I will have my shippers pick them up, and I will send you a $2000 check, and just deposit the $500 and send teh rest back to me in cash, please be hopeful in our trust"

I don't fall for it for a second.

WoW. you too.

[dog dr]

thanks guys, that was my gut reaction as well. i appreciate your help!

[vzkennels]

I have had the calls,& the emails,when ever something sounds strange I don't even reply.The liiter I have now supposedly some one from Ca. wanted to buy a pup for his daughter in Canada etc.The email was not worded right like somone from a foreign country,I just ignored it & never heard from them again.There is usually something that gives it away like not even asking much about the pup or dog.If it don't sound right it's proably not,Kinda like if it sounds too good to be true then it probably isn't.

[birddogsunlimited]

some people the next thing you know they have 1500 bucks and the pup gets dumped off in the middle of no were or ends up in some puppy mill and has back to back litters till she keels over.

[ACooper]

The scams have been for lower amounts recently so people arent so leary about it, but just the same it is still a scam.

[Greg Jennings]

It's almost as common as the Nigerian "fee forward" spams.

[CherrystoneWeims]

I've gotten the puppy buyer email scam also.

[zzweims]

I get this one all the time, which is why I won't sell a pup via email. Every puppy buyer has to CALL me before I will consider selling a pup. I find it interesing that they are going with the 'hearing impaired' angle. I guess I'm not the only breeder who insists on actually speaking to my buyers. We've figured out that most of these guys don't no diddly about dogs and don't speak English very well.

Aline
http://sitekreator.com/zzfarms

[3Britts]

They go with the hearing impaired scam because they speak english with a Nigerian accent. When I got this call, I decided to play along. They sent the bad check and then started emailing about every day wondering where their money was. I told them that I had sent it via fedex, they want it western union because you can pick it up anywhere in the world, and they through a fit. I played with them for about five weeks before they stopped calling. My wife said I was having too much fun. I thought that I was having just the right amount of fun.

[gozz21]

yeah that is a scam. I have gotten the same thing.

[56-26]

A guy that I know from Hancock, IL haf the same thing. The sent him a check from New York. He wanted $800 for the pair of dogs. They sent him a check for I think $4700. They wanted him to cash the check and send the rest to they shipper. My father is a cop and he says that people are alway doing scams like this. By the time you find out that the check won't clear some people have already sent the money on to the shipper.

[Mike Clutter]

They always ask for two pups too. Seems that gundogsonline is where we have gotten them from. if we don't advertise there we don't get them.

[pstrman]

This Scam has been run for the last several years on Sailboats also and originates in Nigeria. I was selling a boat a few years back and had all kinds of offers for over the asking price. I stopped a guy from falling for this as he was trying to sell his boat also and originally he was very upset with me until someone else explained it to him.

Investigations are underway but as usual are hard to close down.

Seller BEWARE.

[phillipsgsp]

We have had the same scam that started with a relay call. It came from when we put a add in the Lincoln newspaper for selling pups. I have not placed a newspaper add since then and have not had anymore of this type of calls.

Chad

[3Britts]

Okay, I received an email just this morning requesting information on the puppies we just listed. I have noticed that this scam also tends to be started by an email arriving before the phone calls start. Beware of dave.dave900@gmail.com, this was the email address that came this morning. My favorite retrobution now, for this type of scam/spam email, is to send curse their way. Tell me, am I a bad boy for doing this?

[prairiefirepointers]

I just got this email the other day, Looks awful fishy. Here it is.

Male pup Xiomara Bermudez <bermudezrios@yahoo.com> AddFriday, January 9, 2009 6:50:15 PMTo:prairiefirepointers

I am interested to have a male pup. Could you send a pup to Puerto Rico? Thanks

[h.q.s]

Here is one I got:

Hello,
I will like to inform you that am having hearing problem,Then am buying the puppy for my son for his birthday gift , i ll like to tell you that i am located in Staten island in NY.Also i will like to let you know that the payment will be a (certified check / Money order) so in view of this i will like you to email me all the necessary information needed to send the money order to you. Regarding the shipping ,i have a personal shipper agent that takes good care of my consignments and ship them to there various destination .So my shipper agent will be at your place to pick up the"Female puppy" soon as the payment is received by you. The money order will be in your name to make it easier for you to cash and as soon as you receive the money order i will like you to cash them then deduct the money for the "Female puppy" and send the remaining balance to my shipper agent so he can contact you immediately for the pick up arrangement at your place.
So here are the information needed for the payment to be mail out asap.

(1) Full Name
(2) Mailing address, no p.o.box please
(3) your direct telephone number
(4) acceptance of my offer

I have prepare a happy home for the puppy.
Hope to hear from you immediately.
L.Obana
NB:I will be paying you additional $50 to reserve the "Female puppy" for me.

Who do they think they are messin with

[snips]

I never use my email address in any ad anymore. Pretty much stopped the scammers.

[seuss79]

Snips,

It's not fullproof but usually scams are done with programs that extract your email. So if you were to put your email online for any reason the safest way to put it up and also reduce spam is as follows:

youremail [at] yahoo.com

By putting it in that format programs cannot extract your email address but people can get it if they physically type it in.

[vzkennels]

That all would take care of the email scams but not phone call sacms.If it don't sound right then it's probably not & I just ignore it.

[littlehunterkennels]

Hello Jami,
How are you doing today and thanks for the response to my mail concerning your puppies for sale.I would have love to call you but am deaf due to the auto crash accident that i had last year but we can contact each other via mail.I am interested in purchasing one of your puppies for sale and i would like to know the following from you
1.How long have you own the puppy?
2.How old and why do you want to sale the puppy?
3.Like to see more pics if available?
4.Where are you located,the present condition and the last asking price of the puppy?
5.I want to know if you do accept Money order as method of payment.If yes,kindly get back to me asap.Have a nice day and i hope to read from you soon.Thanks and God bless you.
Best Regards
Wendy

Here is the email I recieved about buying a puppy. I sent her an email saying unless I get a phone call I won't sell her a dog.

[hunterw/newhobby]

Hello,
I was just wanting to give you a heads up that your pic is now on the home page of gundogbreeders.com. Don't know if you got anything figured out but it says that this is pic was from one of their litters from 4 years ago. Pretty sure that would really p@!! me off. Might want to send an email to the websites web guy.

[h.q.s]

Don't know this for a fact, but I am pretty sure that is his picture. His username is Kninebirddog, and so is that website. I think it was another breeder that used the picture, and that person (kninebirddog) really did take the picture.

[donnie_19]

Don't even respond to those ads. I sell a lot of our excess stuff on craigslist and ebay. Open a different email account using either gmail , hotmail, juno whatever as the email to respond to. You can open as many of these as you need. That way you don't give up your personnel email to the spammers and phishers.
Donnie