Money Laundering / Money Scam (kennel owners)

[Christie]

I want to let you kennel owners know of a potential money laundering scam that has been brought to my attention.

A puppy buyer may contact you to purchase a dog. This person will agree to the price of the pup but request that they pay you more money upfront. When they come to get the pup, you give them the pup and the difference between the pup's asking price and the amount they paid.

If they are paying upfront and way in advance, either by check or wire, this is probably a money laundering operation. If they want to pay by check when they pick up the pup, they are just scamming extra money.

The emails come from yahoo accounts and are written in broken english.

If you have received any of these emails, please let us know (or post them here). You should also contact the police to let them know of this potentially illegal activity. I may consider sending an alert email to all of our listed kennels to let them know what is going on if this is widespread.

Christie

[Christie]

Here are examples of the scam emails:

Thanks very much for the mail,I can understand you very much concerning in interested in your pet,you really sound good and i will love to both any pet you have for the price is okay with me $850 and i will want you to get back to me with your details below so that i can issue the the payment ..hope you have a contact home address if so provide it and send the payment to you once you give me your address..
Here is the address you have to provide for me..
Full Address.........
City.........
States...
Zip/code...
Your phone number.....
I have inform my secretary today immedaitely you provide me you details to issue the check of $3000 because my shiper that will come for the pick up and i dont want you to be worry for the pick up for the pet okay. immedaitely you recieve the payment in your bank you will send the rest of the fund to my shipper in the spain because right now they are now in spain.

I will want my daugth to have it for birthday and i dont want to fail him so that is why? and also i have some goods that i want my shipper to pick for me after they come for your pick up. please kindly contact me back with the details immedaitely and let me know more thing i have to know when you get the pet.

Thanks

Kenny

Hello,
It's has been my honourably pleasure to write you.i am highly intrested in your advertised (Puppies) so i will like you to get back to me with some pics of it and the final price including the present condition so that payment can be remited to you as soon as possible.Thanks my timely response will be appreciate as soon as possible.
Nick.

[ohiogsp]

I have had this one before.

[blathens]

I also have had the letters and phone calls. One guy from Canada sent me a certified check on a Texas bank that looked bogus. I told him I would deposit the check and send him the difference AFTER it cleared. I made a copy of the check and faxed it to the Texas bank for verification. I got a call immediately that it was a bogus check. Unbelievably, the "buyer" called me several times asking if I had sent the check to his "shipper."

Bill

[sixgunner455]

This is a big scam which is being played for buying all kinds of things, and has been for a couple of years now. Lots of the scammers are in Nigeria and other African nations, for some reason or other. I've seen this referred to from Ebay, horse people, collectibles, online classifieds, etc.

One thing I particularly enjoyed in the one Christie listed is that the "buyer" said he was buying the pup for his "daugth" birthday and doesn't want "to fail him". That kind grammar thing doesn't mean a buyer is a bad person, of course, but it is a clue that they aren't speaking too much English. Because of this scam, that is an alert signal to be very careful.

If they do convince a seller to cash or deposit that oversized check, the seller may be liable for the entire amount. Anyone that is contacted by such a buyer should contact law enforcement.

[ME]

No, what we need is that someone needs to lead one of these theifs on and play with these guys. Pretend you are interested and ask for references and a photo of the guy. Give him the line that you want the puppy to go a good home. Then post the replys here on the site so we can all laugh along. Have the guy address you as captain or sum such sir name, every time they don't chastise them it your return e-mail. Have them send a recent photo of themselves holding a sign that you have them make, something like I LOVE PUPPIES, or Jesus Saves. You can have the guy on the line and use his greed to lead him to do silly stuff...

The whole time you use the concern for the puppy and its home as the reason to get him to do "just one more thing" to prove you can trust him..

I followed one of these things on a florida fishing site and I never laughed so hard in my life.

Use your imagination and you can have these greedy crooks doing hand stands on camera for you.. And we all get some good entertainment...

[sixgunner455]

There's a lady who breeds horses doing exactly that, ME. She does this with any scam artist she comes across. She has a website devoted to it, but I forgot what the link is. Very funny! She also involves law enforcement whenever possible.

[Sharpshot Kennels]

We came across one recently that was selling a spinone puppy, we led her on as her add didn't sound right, first she said she was in the US so it would be difficult to see the pups, then because she didn't realize that we were in Ireland said that she had moved to the UK with all the pups, so when I said it would be no trouble to visit and see the pup she gave us a bogus address in the UK - she didn't realize that the dogs would have to be quarantined to enter the UK as they would have been too young to have a pet passport, I got several other spinone owners to contact her too. The photo on the add was a spinone pup, but the photos she sent were some sort of mix. After a short while I contacted the site that ran her add and they removed it, plus several others she had on the site for various other pups of other breeds - she wanted money upfront before you could call to see the dogs, deposited to a bank account - which we forwarded to the fraud squad! we never did hear from her again!

[KYgsp]

I generally feel that a person should be pretty suspicious when the buyer is African royalty or wants to pay with a "cheque" for more than the amount and have their shipper pick up the product.

As long as this scam has been around I can't believe that people are still falling for it.