Does this sound like a scam you've heard?

First, the age of the dog and the number of dogs has changed. Second, they have puppies in Africa that they are trying to find homes for overseas? And they want you to 'split' shipping costs?

You might want to move that 99.9% over to 100%.

There was a news story here about a similar scam a few years ago. The dog was in Africa but it was an English Bulldog. The people they interviewed got scammed out of some serious cash.

Nothing good ever comes out of Africa.

Definitely a scam. My mom almost got taken by this one a few years ago, too.

If you want a Yorkie that bad, I'm sure you can find one stateside that won't cost you nine hundred million dollars to have shipped from Africa. Now a lion, on the other hand, might be worth the cost.

MattW said:

Nothing good ever comes out of Africa unsolicited email.

Click to expand...

Well, wait a minute, it wasn't spam ... from the OP:

I saw an ad in the paper for a 2-year-old dog that the owner was giving to a good home. It listed an email address as the only contact.

Click to expand...

What does the paper charge for a "pets available" ad? I suspect such ads are free.

I'd ask the paper about it, and forward to them what you got so far, and suggest they not accept ads with email contacts only (thought a phone-number-or-email contact is bound to have some random phone number the scammer tossed in - the rule should just be no email addresses), or perhaps they should CHARGE for "pets available" ads.


And to be "fair" to Nigeria (the "419 scam" is so-called because 419 is the part of the Nigerian law/code that makes the act illegal in Nigeria) and other African countries, these scams claim to come from everywhere nowadays, and they DO, though there may be no connection between where they claim to come from and where they actually come from. If you get to the point where they tell you a Western Union office to wire the money to, they're probably located within driving difference of that office. As a direct result of these scams, I've heard that Western Union offices now have signs up on the wall that say "Do not wire money to someone you do not know."

And for more fun, you might want to join http://419eater.com and see what they do, maybe post what happened to you as you did in this thread (this method of scamming may be new to them - they'll want to scour newspapers for for-free ads with email addresses), or you might even join them in wasting the time of these scammers. No doubt they would love to have the text of that ad, complete with the email address, but double-check the rules of posting such things on their forums.

Scam. It was in the news. Scam. Don't even go there. Yes, please contact the newspaper and alert them. We had to deny ads to a scammer doing the exact same thing.

tomothecat said:

...
Thanks and God bless you.

Best Regards,
Jude

Click to expand...

And another thing - these scammers always appear to be Christian, never Muslim (who instead might say Praise be to Allah!), nor agnostic or atheist or any other recognizable belief system, thus prey on the makority belief in the USA, all the Good (vulnerable) Christians. And within Christian belefs, using His name in this way is arguably taking His name in vain.

It's almost enough to make me wanna get baptised so I can believe these scammers will burn...

Ambrosia said:

You might want to move that 99.9% over to 100%.

Click to expand...

Word.

Just another Nigerian 419 scam.

Yep, it's a popular scam up where I live, too. Here's a write up about it, in case anyone is tempted by those puppies:

http://www.phonebusters.com/english/recognizeit_puppy.html

I know that scammers will use anything to make a buck, but it still makes me very angry that they would use the affection people feel for animals as a scam.

The first clue to this scam, I think, would be the offer of common breeds from another country, like from Africa for instance. It's not like Yorkies are the rarest of dogs, and you can't purchase them anywhere else except from the Dark Continent.

I mean, really. Yorkies are, by and large, the dumbest, least attractive choice for a pet canine you can think of; which makes the scam even more beautiful, that they can steal your money for a breed that isn't even desirable in the first place.

Scam.

They post those all over craigslist, often times as though the seller was local. It's only when you contact them do you find they're somewhere in Africa. And, of course, they just need the shipping costs to be paid beforehand.

tomothecat said:

Hey I love yorkies

Click to expand...

Sorry. I was going by my personal experience with that breed. But if you've never owned one, please, by all means, consider another dog for your pleasure. You'll hate me now but love me later, I promise.

Haha my SIL has two Yorkies. They're cute, but kinda lacking in personality. I'd take a sheltie over another small breed, anyway. I also like Shih Tzus or at least a cross.

If you're looking to adopt a dog, look for a local phone number and don't be sucked in by shipping costs.

I like turtles.

We found a similar ad in our paper for pet monkeys. Hubby wanted to get one for daughter's birthday. I'm so glad he realized it was a scam before sending them any money.

tomothecat said:

The dog is actually for my mom. I'm moving out soon (I hope/dream) and taking my two cats with me, and she wants a dog. She doesn't care about breed, she just wants a dog that's small enough to carry because our previous dog was 80+ pounds, and when she got old she had a really hard time with stairs. We're hoping to rescue one from a shelter or an owner who can no longer keep it, which is what I thought this ad was before I heard back.

My experience is with big shelter mixes and retrievers, but aunt does have a yorkie that is a lot of fun. It does some unique tricks and is a lap dog.

Africa or not, I'm not going to adopt a dog that needs to be shipped to me.

Click to expand...

What about a visit to your closest Humane Society? Go right to the source rather than look through ads.

Certainly a 491 scam. With puppies. I learn something new about this world every day. Here's Consumerist and 419 eater on the scam.

Tomo, stay well away from this. Those 419ers are bad people..