French Bull dog scam on Craigs list

8 years ago

There was an ad on our local CL for a "free French Bull Dog." A cute little pic and a sob story of how the owner can't keep it in their apartment and it'll have a small rehome fee... yadda yadda.....

I KNEW it was scam, but I emailed anyway. Brief line, "I'm interested tell me what to do." Got back more sob story giving the pups away (now there are 2), we can't keep them, do you own a pet, do you have a vet, will you provide a loving home, promise you won't sell..... will you send photos of them as they grow, are you a breeder? yadda yadda.........

So here's what I said in my reply:

Oh yes. I'm a dog breeder!

I currently have over 50 pairs of male & female dogs at various stages of age.

Some are currently pregnant and we probably have about 70 puppies of different breeds right now for sale.

I have no idea exactly how many pups we have, too many to count.

But
each puppy lives in a crate with their mother. And as soon as one is
going to be viewed, it is taken from the crate to the house.

We would like to add Frenchies to our pack.

It'd be great and probably not that difficult to sell either.

Can't wait to hear from you!

Here's their reply:

After reading through your mail, you moved to the number one spot in
my heart for potential adopters of my lil pup.

More details on his personality.

My husband and I have decided to give out these puppies to any one who
is ready to take good care of them and we are happy you are willing to
do so for him. All we need from you is your love for the baby. I
really wanted to meet with you so you can pick up yourself but since
you are not in our area and it's a distances ride on car i don't know
if you will make up the ride to come pick up today or tomorrow.

We just relocate some few days ago to Galveston, TX

Better still if you cant make it up, they can be registered to a near
by pets transportation company and will be home delivered to you ok.
All you will have to do is paying for the transfer of paper works
document from me to you and part shipping expenses so he will be home
delivered to you right at your doorsteps while i take care of the
rest shipping expenses okay. We are giving the puppies for free since
they were given to us as a birthday gift ( at just 6 weeks old) and
all i want in return is just you to take care of
him and send me monthly pictures so i can see his progress.

___________________________________________

I'm SO GLAD they moved me up to #1!!

OMG. I cannot believe the lengths people will go to!

Stinkin' lowlifes...........

Featured Answer

donna_loomis

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

Yes, us crazy old cat people nearly fell for a scam recently. A beautiful Bengal kitten needed to be rehomed. The seller had a roommate whose co-worker owned the cat and had to relocate to Australia for business. Co-worker gave the cat to the roommate. Roommate's sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer and roommate went to be with her, leaving the cat. Seller didn't want a cat. Of course these details were only revealed later through a series of texts.

My daughter saw the ad and thought I would be interested. She did all the texting and phoning and shared the texts with me and put me on 3-way for the calls. We're in California and the cat was supposedly within a hundred miles of us. Then it was in Virginia, but they could ship it to us. By now we knew it was a scam and daughter decided to have some fun. She asked how much to ship. The guy said about $95. Daughter said okay, but it would have to be shipped C.O.D., because she wants to make sure the cat was really in the package. We then get a call from the shipping company (they even had a website) telling us to go to Walgreens and send $195 via Western Union to some guy in Cameroon. Daughter says it's supposed to be C.O.D., but the guy says they can't do that anymore because they've been burned too many times. She says (truthfully) that our Walgreens does not have Western Union. So, he says to go to Rite-Aid. She said she doesn't think Rite-Aid has Western Union either. The guy yells, "Yes they do and so does Walgreens!"

Daughter strings him along for a bit longer, says she's not comfortable sending money to Cameroon, so they come up with a name and address in Los Angeles. They call and ask if she's sent the money yet. She says not yet. She wants them to take a picture of the cat in the carrier, with a newspaper in the picture showing the date. She gets the picture, but no newspaper. The text says, "It is nighttime now. This picture was taken in the daytime" Huh? She texts back, Still waiting for what I asked for." Daughter stops answering her phone. After about six calls, he texts asking why she is not taking his cals. He's mad. Says they don't have facilities to keep the cat overnight, so they will have to take it to a shelter for the night. And they will be calling the "animal police" on her and she will be charged with cruelty to animals.

We got a good laugh over it.

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Comments (10)

maddielee
8 years ago
I think selling pets is prohibited according to Craigslist rules. So if you see an ad for a pet, it's probably not going to have a good outcome.
pudgeder thanked maddielee
terilyn
8 years ago
Love your response!
pudgeder thanked terilyn
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mamapinky0
8 years ago
It is against Craigslist rules to sell pets. Your only allowed to ask a small rehoming fee. I wouldn't consider 300-400-700and even higher a small rehoming fee yet there's always tons on Pittsburghs Craigslist.
arkansas girl
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
So are they just trying to get you to give them "shipping fees" and then you'll never hear from them again? I'm not following what the actual scam is and what money they are scamming other than this transport fee or paper transfer fees. I suppose that would be a few hundred dollars, they would take that money from you then of course there IS NOT DOG.

Where we live, there are tons of pet ads on CL. I also hear people talking about getting their dog off of CL. I just would be too scared to trust them.
donna_loomis
8 years ago
I did a bit of reading after this happened to us. After you are stupid enough to pay the shipping, you will hear from them again and again with reasons you need to send more money. They will tell you the animal is sick and needs medicine for X amount of $. Then there might be a request for money to buy insurance, adoption papers, a better cage, extra food, etc. And amazingly, they sometimes collect thousands of dollars from people who have fallen in love with a picture of an animal that doesn't even exist. Disgusting!
User
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Yep....that was a scam! Lowlifes on CL, yeppers...

But just so everyone doesn't think badly of CL....I did get my cat off a free ad there.
donna_loomis
8 years ago
The scam we almost fell for was not on Craig's List. There is something similar on Facebook and that is where my daughter found the ad. Not saying any of the sites/organizations are bad. Just bad people. And you will find those everywhere.
Yayagal
8 years ago
Pudge, you certainly got them to show their cards, lol. Good for you. My daughter had two abbys and one Somali and decided she wanted a bengal also which she purchased from a reliable dealer. This cat is so different in that it marks it's territory constantly, attacks the other cats so it has to be isolated. She loves Benny but he's a lot of work for her. She would never get one again. There are so many in shelters for free as people have trouble with them.
share_oh
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
My daughter saw two Frenchie puppies at a pet store - $4500 each! I can't imagine anyone paying such money for a dog. I read they are hard to breed for some reason and that's why they're more expensive.

Guess that's why in all my years of shelter volunteering I've never seen one.

As for the scammers - surely they don't think anyone would think they'd give it away for free! Loved you playing along with them!

French Bull dog scam on Craigs list

donna_loomis

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