Useful tips on detecting scammers posing as Maine Coon breeders
Sadly, internet pet scams are on the rise. The human affection for our furry friends is an open arms invitation for many types of animal scams. With our love for animals we often don’t recognize the animal scams and can easily get taken.
Maine Coon Cats have reached a very popular state in the US and abroad. Because of the popularity and the prices, scammers have come out ten folds. Their goal is to cheat people out of their money.
Usually these scammers will place ads or have websites that have nice pictures and are fairly well worded, though many will have bad grammer and misspelled words. Rest assured that a scam site is only after money and the animal will not exist, at least in their hands. The pictures are stolen from legitimate websites and breeders. Scam websites may also take the wording as well as testimonials from a legitimate breeder’s website.
Facebook is huge right now for animal scammers. If an ad on Facebook looks too good to be true, then is probably is a scam. Below are some tips on protecting yourself against these scammers.
1.) Look the websites or Facebook ads over very closely. Are there things that you find odd as in broken English, prices drastically reduced, pictures of a totally different animal than what is listed for sale. If you are skeptical, ask that they take a picture of themselves holding the kitten/cat. Ask them to do it right away. This will aid in not allowing them to search out a picture on the internet. Most scammers will say that they cannot right now and give some excuse. Asking to do a zoom meeting or FaceTime. A scammer will have a thousand reasons why they cannot. Scammers will often use PayPal’s “friends and family” payments. A person cannot dispute friends and family payments and the scammers know this and will use this technique.
3.) Make sure you ask for more pictures than are on the website or in the advertisement. Ask for pictures at different ages as well as different angles. Compare all the pictures to make sure they are all the same animal. Some scammers can fake these by stealing and following someone’s updates of kittens. Due diligence is a must.
4.) One of the reasons that these websites look so legitimate, they steal the text from other websites. If you want to see if the text is stolen, copy and paste the website address into the search bar at http://www.copyscape.com . Copyscape will allow 10 checks per day per computer. It will list places that have the same exact or very similiar text. Again, not an absolute but it will help.
5.) A person can also do what is called a “who is” search on the domain name to see if it is registered in another country. Who Is is one such place to check. There are Maine Coon breeders, as well as other animal breeders in other countries that are legitimate: so not all “out of country” websites, are scams. Below is a “who is” for my website. Information is mostly hidden but the state and country are visible. A small hint to location.
Name REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Organization REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Address REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
City REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
State / Province CALIF
Postal Code REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Country USA
6.) Check to see if there is a phone number. While some breeders will prefer email contact and not list their phone number, most will have a phone number on the site. Not having a phone number on the website does not mean a breeder is not legitimate. The purpose here is to check the location. If there is a phone number, do a search on the area code to see where it is located. If the area code is out of the country but they say they are in New York, then you will have a great clue that the site you are on is a scam site. Remember that there are some breeders in other countries that are legitimate. Most of the scam sites are people from African and Cameroon but I have seen sites listed in Australia, Europe, Russia, and Czech Republic as well. This of course is not a complete list of dubious tricks a scammer will use. If in doubt, contact a breeder and ask them their thoughts. You can also visit this website below to see if the cattery websites are listed. Remember, due diligence is your friend when looking for a new forever fur friend for your home and family
Article written by Gary Fulgham and cannot be copied or used without permission.