Watch Out for Bulldog and Other Online Pet Scams

[Kris10]

This week we've had a lot of classified ads posted for French and English Bulldogs. All of these turned out to be overseas scammers. While theBubbler is not responsible for classifieds posts or responses, we do try to catch and eliminate spam ads as soon as we find them.

Bulldogs, parrots and monkeys are popular bait for online scammers. The scammers post these desirable animals often as free or low-cost with irresistible photos. Once you respond, the scammer will likely try to get a check or money order from you to cover "shipping" fees. Usually they request the money be sent to a country outside of the USA. You can be sure you won't get your money back or your bulldog.

Here are some things to watch out for with any online pet ads:

- Does the text in the ad read like the poster doesn't grasp English very well? Does the poster misspell words and phrase things like this:

These here are for sale adorble bulldog babies. These loveley babies are housetrained and want to love you and come to your home. Email me to have more pictures of the babies. I am relocating and want to live them before I am moveing.

- Does the poster ask that you only communicate with email? You should be able to call the owner, or better yet, visit the animal on location.

- Does the post sound desperate and offer the animal free or low cost? Responsibly bred bulldogs, parrots and monkeys are not cheap or free.

- Does the user have an email address from gmail.com, yahoo.com or a overseas address (i.e. johndoe@yahoo.co.uk)? Gmail and Yahoo emails are free and easily disposable by spammers.

If you find a classified that seems questionable, please use our Contact Us form to report the post.

[geri_s]

I have had several experiences with scammers online; some on here, and some I received in my personal e-mail account. I advertised a puppy for sale her on the bubbler, and was inundated with offers to purchase my puppy, but they wanted to send me a $2000 money order, and all I had to do is cash it, send them a $1000, and keep the rest (I was only asking $500.00 for the dog!) A few in my personal e-mail were about the story about the missionary going to Africa, and wanted to sell his yorkshire puppy because it was too hot to keep the dog in Africa. It's good to keep people aware of the scams, and, to qoute my grandmother, "If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably a crock of horse puckey!)

[pk]

I remember the first time I read an ad on the bubbler for a free cute bulldog. I read the whole thing several times thinking it had to be to good to be true...but my friends and I did just receive 3 beautiful, well taken care of, Savannah cats for free. (each of us kept one and it was a great experience). So, I decided to try answer the ad on the free bull dog.

lol it was a Joke. Right away I was contacted by email and told it was wonderful that I wanted the dog and to wait for further instructions by yet someone else. It was less than a day later I was again contacted this time by someone saying they really needed to give the dog away but I had to pay a high shipping price (I forgot now how much it was but it was in the hundreds). The dog was coming from a place in Africa.

So, now I learned to really check out and report all ads that some like the ones Kris described. Most are pretty easy to guess if they are fake or not.

The only thing I can really recommend is to look for a phone number. Most people will put a phone number in. Or contact them through their member page and ask for one. If it is not a number from around here don't even bother with it.

Another thing I wanted to mention about scammer emails. DON"T RESPOND back. Spam the email and let it alone. Once you contact them back they know they have a 'real' email and it can open you up to many more to come. Many people are tempted to write back and say a comment about the scam and write...do not contact them. But this I understand is a wrong thing to do. Never email anyone back that you think are from another country or a scam. Just leave it alone and ignore the email. Spam, or delete it.

[Woodman9]

I just dropped in to see what condition the Bubbler was in. The home page classified ads are all scams! In fact the last five classifieds from ff021414 are scams. I went to the website and this is what you will find:

(1) Fill the online registration form, with all your details. After submission you will see ‘‘success page’’, below it options will be there to make instant registration fees for channel partner by credit card. You can use credit card or your paypal account to make a payment of $135. (Amount is totally Refundable after a period of 2 months only).


Site Admin: These ads are to be removed, right??