Strange response to Petfinder ads

I've been trying to rehome Goldy and two of her kittens, but haven't had much luck so far. When I first looked at petfinder.com I thought only nonprofit organizations were allowed to post animals for adoption. After reading some of the posts here I checked it out again and finally found the area where I could post the kitties for adoption.

I put up three separate ads for Goldy, Lion, and Cali. Within a few hours I got this email.

Hello
My name is Mr Jerry Morgan, Am a businessman and i reside in BAKERSFIELD,CALIFORNIA.... I went through your advert on Petfinder.com and i will like to adopt the pet to my lovely family, so i will like you to get back to me with the present condition of the pet and tell me the asking price including the Pics of the pet and i dont want you to be bother of the shipping fees, so i will be glad to hear back from you..

I Awaits Your Quick And Sincere Response,
My Regards,
Mr Jerry Morgan For The Family.

There are several red flags here for me. 1) I got exactly the same email for Goldy (twice), Lion, and Cali. No comment such as "I see you have three cats and I would like to adopt all three". 2) I didn't specifically say that the cats are healthy but I did include information about shots and spay or neuter. 3) I posted a picture with each ad. 4) I very clearly stated the adoption fee in the ad. 5) The wording and tone of the message is very similar to other emails I've gotten in relation to my photography business, which I assumed were scams.

My question is, how should I respond to this? I don't want to ignore it entirely just in case it's a real person wanting a kitty. (I know, highly unlikely.) I will reply from a yahoo email account that I set up for the specific purpose of keeping spam away from my real email account.

Do I respond in good faith and answer his questions? I also have a list of questions that I ask any prospective new owner. Do I send my list of questions and point out that his questions were already answered in the ad? Do I say I think it is a scam?

Any suggestions?

It seems strange to me.
I can research that.
We do have friends down there.

I think you need to go with your instincts - if you think there is something wrong with the ad, try to wait a little until you find a family you can trust... It can be somebody who has written an email before for another cat, and is just copying and pasting the email, contacting more than one source, to find the right pet... I have done this - not for a pet, but for a computer on CL.
Can you try to find out more from him? If he has any pets, what is he looking for, and since he sent you 3 emails for 3 different cats, if he intends to adopt all three?
I would try to get more info from him...

Don't bother replying, it's a scam. I know breeders who get them all the time they always refer to "the pet" instead of cat/dog etc. and always involves shipping.

Sorry. It's a scam. Just delete it.

Total scam. I get 3 or 4 a week and yes they almost always refer to shipping.

You wonder how the scam works and wonder if Petfinder is aware of it.

I think the scam works by sending you the $, including too much, and asking you to send back the "remainder." You do, before the check clears, and then, *surprise* the check doesn't clear. You're out the $ you sent back and your pets, if you sent them. Very sad. Very awful. Don't fall for it!

Ditto, it's totally a 419 scam. I used to work in a field that got a lot of these, and this just reaks of it.

If you want, play with them This American Life has a piece on the scam baters earlier this year.

Thanks for all your comments. I was pretty sure it was a scam. I got another similar set of emails last night, only this time from someone claiming to be in Delaware and giving "details" about his family and home.

So, how about this? I set up a completely new Yahoo email account which I will use for nothing else. I'm thinking of sending this message as a reply to both of the "prospective adopters".

I received your emails about my three cats who were advertised on petfinder.com. Thank you for your interest. However, I am not comfortable sending the cats so far away. I want to be able to visit the home(s) where they are going and deliver them myself rather than shipping them somewhere. I am sure you can find the perfect pet for you closer to your home.

Sincerely,
Joan
Edit: Or maybe I shouldn't even put my real name in the email?
If they answer that email I'll just ignore it.

Is there any way to report these people to petfinder?

I know you can report it.
Look on the site for a phone number to report it to.

Seriously, these scammers are scum of the earth. They don't deserve a polite response. I've seen businesses lose thousands of dollars because of their scams. You can either bate them, which wastes their time and means they have less time to scam other innocent people, and/or you can report them to petfinder. Craig's List often has a warning at the top of the page. Petfinder should put one up too.

Petfinder does have a warning at the top of the page, with links to examples. I just didn't see any way to report specific ones. They had some links to government reporting agencies, but those looked awfully complicated.

You can surely let the police know of these scam. Or FBI. or something.

Here in Sweden pursuing criminals is work for the police. I assume they send it to an appropriate section who works with such scams.

I'm sorry you are experiencing this. I once posted a dog for someone else on the Petfinder classifieds. All I got were these spam/scam responses. I don't recommend using the Petfinder classifieds at all, because it seems like all you get are scams. Now, I'm sure there are people that have had luck with it, but I can't trust anyone that responds to a Petfinder classified anymore. I got several emails, all from different people, many claiming to be "business men." None of them lived near where the dog was located. They all seemed to "speak" the same, use the same bad grammar, etc. I googled all the email addresses and I found the majority of them on a site where you can go to list email addresses that are scams. I also found that several of the email addresses had been connected with posts on the Petfinder classifieds, trying to sell or adopt out dogs. Why would they need to adopt a dog if they'd rehomed several dogs on Petfinder already? I don't know if they were trying to swindle money from me or hurt the dog or both, but I reported it to Petfinder. All they did was apologise. I suggested they at least post a warning about it and ban the email addresses I had given them, etc., but they did do anything.

It's not just bad grammar. These emails are obviously written by someone for whom English in not the first language. There is a distinctive feel to the language, but without hearing it spoken I can't tell what the primary language might be.

They are most probably written by someone whose English IS their first language.

It's all part of their tactic - trust me. I wouldn't send any of my details to them (inc your name).

We get them about once a week at the shelter too, we also have someone promising us a mobile vet van through petfinder that is a scam

Originally Posted by StefanZ

You can surely let the police know of these scam. Or FBI. or something.

Here in Sweden pursuing criminals is work for the police. I assume they send it to an appropriate section who works with such scams.

Click to expand...

Unless you actually send them the money, it isn't a scam so the police can't do anything.

Originally Posted by MissKitties

... I don't recommend using the Petfinder classifieds at all, because it seems like all you get are scams. ... I don't know if they were trying to swindle money from me or hurt the dog or both, but I reported it to Petfinder. All they did was apologise. I suggested they at least post a warning about it and ban the email addresses I had given them, etc., but they did do anything.

Click to expand...

We have a lot of luck with Petfinder and many shelters do so I wouldn't go as far as not recommending them. The way Petfinder sees it is every person homing an animal would have their own standards and it is not their place to interfere with those. Just because someone emails you on Petfinder doesn't mean you have to accept them as adopters or even reply.

Also scammers change their email addresses so frequently that Petfinder posting them wouldn't help, but they could get sued for confidentiality issues or if the person is honest and the email was just misunderstood.

We once got an email from someone that we deleted as a scam. The woman came into the shelter the next day, terrible English as she had just moved here and all the questions because she didn't know how adopting an animal worked. She is now a great volunteer. You really can't tell by a simple email

Originally Posted by GoldyCat

It's not just bad grammar. These emails are obviously written by someone for whom English in not the first language. There is a distinctive feel to the language, but without hearing it spoken I can't tell what the primary language might be.

Click to expand...

Yes, this is exactly how all of the emails I received were like. They were all from "different people," yet, they all seemed to be from the same foreign country!

Originally Posted by icklemiss21

We have a lot of luck with Petfinder and many shelters do so I wouldn't go as far as not recommending them. The way Petfinder sees it is every person homing an animal would have their own standards and it is not their place to interfere with those. Just because someone emails you on Petfinder doesn't mean you have to accept them as adopters or even reply.

Also scammers change their email addresses so frequently that Petfinder posting them wouldn't help, but they could get sued for confidentiality issues or if the person is honest and the email was just misunderstood.

We once got an email from someone that we deleted as a scam. The woman came into the shelter the next day, terrible English as she had just moved here and all the questions because she didn't know how adopting an animal worked. She is now a great volunteer. You really can't tell by a simple email

Click to expand...

I said that I don't recommend using the Petfinder Classifieds, not Petfinder as a whole. I think Petfinder is a very valuable resource for shelters, in fact, I have three foster kittens up there now. I think most of the scamming goes on within the free classifieds where anyone can post an animal to rehome/adopt, etc. I will never post an animal in the free classifieds again. I think if you want to post an animal on Petfinder you should try to contact a local no-kill shelter/rescue and ask to post the animal you're trying to help as a courtesy post through their Petfinder page. The rescue I work with lets people do that.

Well, I never suggested they post the email addresses on their site. I suggested they use one of those IP address trackers to prohibit multiple IP addresses from registering on their site multiple times. These systems do exist and I know of sites that use them.

Believe me, if you received all the emails I did from about 20 different email addresses, all sounding like they were from the same person, you'd know that something wasn't right. Plus, as I already mentioned, I looked every email address up. They were all either listed on a website to report scam/spam email addresses or they were connected with Petfinder classifieds listing animals for adoption under strange circumstances. It wasn't just one email. When I received the first email, I didn't even rule it out completely. It wasn't until I received mutiple versions of very similar messages that I realized this definitely wasn't normal.