I tried to see if we had a thread on this and couldn't find one. This goes along with the Craigslist Huskies Thread. I thought I'd touch on how to tell which ads are real and which are scams.

I know there's several people on this forum, myself included, who don't yet own a husky and are coming here for information while still looking for a Husky of their own. If you are someone like me who's hoping to give some pup a second chance at a good home, you're looking at rescues, ads, anything but breeders pretty much.

I just saw an ad on my Craigslist for Husky pups. I would love to give more information, but the ad has since been deleted. I did contact the author, mainly to test to see if it was a scam or not. I said I was interested but wanted more info. Genders, colors, parents' personalities, dob, all the good stuff. I DID NOT put anything about myself in there. I got a reply I'd say half an hour or so later. She said there was two pups left of 6, one male, one female. Bella and Roby. She also provided this:

Quote :

Gender: female and Male
Breed: Siberian Husky
Recognition: KC registered
Health Problems: No health problems
Living Conditions: can live anywhere.
Training: well trained.
Health Condition: Excellent health condition,vet
checked, registered and confirmed health guarantee.
Socialization: easily socialize with children and other home pets.

She went on to ask me a series of questions I would expect to be asked since my email had no info about me in it. I was glad to see her ask about my vet, living situation and how I planned to care for them.

Again, I answered all her questions, careful not to give out too much information about myself. At this point, I thought maybe it wasn't a scam, but I still wanted to be safe.

What throws me is her reply after this. She's not asking for any money. She told me where she was located and that I'm free to pick up a puppy if I'd like. She explained that she asked the questions to make sure the pups go to a good home. The only price even mentioned was if you'd need transport, it'd be $140 for the pet transport agency. I haven't heard back from her after asking if I could see the pups first.

Her initial email did have 6 pictures of the pups. Good quality, not great. However, there's only two (I'm assuming the two availables) pups in the pictures. The way she makes it sound is as if the pups are available now. The photographed pups are much younger than 8 weeks old and there's no sign of other pups in the picture. Not even the blurry outline of one running around in the background.

Now, I didn't make this thread to see if anyone thought this was a scam. I'm pretty sure it is, since the CL post has since been deleted and the grammar was less than decent. Not only that but the pictures send me for a loop. At the most, she's a BYB. My only question is, if it is a scam, why bother? She's not asking for any money for the pups so it's not like I'm going to send off $300 and never see a puppy.

So how do we know when ads are a scam and when they are someone actually trying to find a good home for the pups? We've discussed before that it's likely a scam if a 3 year old is going for $800 or if they offer registration papers on a $200 pup. But what about instances like this where the author is asking for little to no fee but also doesn't seem very informative? What do they have to gain from obtaining responses to fake ads for "free to a good home" pups?

well im sure someone flagged the post as selling puppies is not aloud on CL, even thought no $ was mentioned im sure it was flagged as they were puppies. im sure the talk of $ would happen when you showed up for one of the pups. keep an eye out the post might come back up. it does sound odd that she was not asking for any$..... when looking at CL the best indication of a scam is your gut, if it feels wrong after a few emails my bet it is. petfinder is a safe place to look as are rescues. we got Sierra for free on CL im glad we got her, we were the 2nd call and the 1st call was a bad fit. there have been a few on here "scammed" by CL ads and it sucks. good luck on your hunt

Thanks, Jenn. I shouldn't be looking right now but I tend to check the ads every now and then. I know these things can go good or bad very quickly. Callie was an ebay classifieds ad. It's easy enough for me to tell when something is off but I just had no clue why someone would go through the trouble of posting and replying to emails when they're not asking for any money.

Any ad looking to transport is a scam, plan and simple. There is no transport agency, they just want a credit card number.

+1 Kristina about the transport agency.

When I was looking for Juneau, I was hunting the CL ad's. There was this one 3 month gorgeous husky puppy that I was interested in. It looked legit. Poster said they didn't have time for a 3 month puppy while they were in school. We e-mailed back and forth and they asked me proper questions that an ordinary person would ask when rehoming their pup. They kept repeating the same thing over and over though, such as "we are so happy that you have decided to pick our Teddy and we know that you're PERFECT for him", yada yada (this was a "reply" to my first email with them!). Then they mentioned they were in NY, and would transfer him to me after I sent payment info. WTF? If you're in NY, why the heck are you advertising for Houston CL?! I understand if OK or NM decided to advertise, but NY is like miles and miles away. I'm sure they were in Houston anyways, but I flagged the post.

Anyways, I didn't mean to ramble on. Thankfully I just ignored their e-mail and they left me alone. I get scared when I e-mail CL posters - especially since you don't know who's on the other end!

Any time they hedge on letting you come see the pup and want to ship it to you (for a fee of course), then it's a scam.
I've seen several ads where the pics are of beautiful pups only to find that they swiped the pics from a legit breeder's web site. So I am very very leery of pics that look too good.
If the ad only allows for a CL email reply and they won't give a phone number in subsequent communications, it's probably a scam.
If the English is really really bad (words maybe spelled correctly but the sentence construction seems off), it could be one of those Cameroon scams (I've encountered a few of those.) They will ask a bunch of probing questions to make themselves seem more legit, but the questions have the feel of a 'cut and paste' and don't really flow with the rest of the email.
Good luck in your search!

Any Cameroon (or any foreign country) ad you receive will be a scam. There is no if's about it. You'll reply to an ad, you'll get a reply back in broken english (usually) with awful structure and usually some pictures of the pup(s) [these pictures they send are found on the internet]. It'll have a list of questions for you to answer. You reply. Their reply back will be a sob story about how they lost their child and the dog was theirs and they can't care for it and there is no fee to pay just as long as the dog goes to a good home but they will almost always tell you to get transport (like people up there have mentioned). If you're in the same area (or close to) that they posted the ad they'll have suddenly moved to some country that you've never heard of because they're a minister or with the peace corp. or some other silly reason etc and they took the dog with them but it's not going well in the weather and they feel bad etc etc.

These are ALL emails I've received. Someone actually went so far as to get my phone number and text me about puppies (I never supplied my phone number) and when I called them out on their scam they had quite a few nasty things to say to me.

They send the pictures because people lose their heads over puppies- seeing cute puppies makes most people just go "omg there's the dog I want!". Many people are in fact duped by these scams - which is why they're still ongoing. They also get TONS of responses to those ads and many people fall for them. They aren't just "one and done" type deals. Those ads stay up all of the time (unless they get flagged on CL). And IF you (general) gets caught up in one of these scams - going to the police will do nothing.

Good luck in your search for a pup! The right one will come around!

Niraya wrote:

[these pictures they send are found on the internet]

Tineye [http://tineye.com] is a valuable resource when searching what you think might be a scam. You can upload or link to a pic that you've been sent and it will show you other places where the picture is available. A nice way to pick up on some of those scams.... when you see their pics coming from a NY CL as as well as TX, etc.

Good luck!