Online scammers turning to pedigree dog ads By Samantha Donovan Posted 9 hours

Online scammers turning to pedigree dog ads

By Samantha Donovan

Posted 9 hours 43 minutes ago

The ACCC is warning would-be dog owners not to be fooled by advertisements offering pedigree dogs at bargain prices.

The Age newspaper in Melbourne ran an expensive ad in a prominent position for several days only to realise it was a scam.

The consumer watchdog agrees it is a newish twist to the old Nigerian banking rort.

A dog breeder prepared to advertise one puppy on page three of The Age newspaper clearly has several thousand dollars to play with.

The Melbourne broadsheet ran the ad four days in a row before pulling it from today's edition. It read:

'Female English bulldog puppy for sale for $600. Shipping not included. Vet checked. Up to date shots and worming. Home raised with children in loving environment.'

An email address was given for interested buyers.

Peter Kell is the deputy chairman of the ACCC and says the puppy classified ad style scams first came to light in 2007 and the consumer watchdog is now getting about 300 complaints a month.

"Many of these are about cars and motorcycles. But ads for puppies are certainly right up there," he said.

Mr Kell says these ads may be the new version of a Nigerian email scam.

"There does seem to be a link to West Africa with these sorts of classified ad scams," he said.

"And it's often the case that one of the hallmarks is that the seller claims to have relocated to West Africa and that's one of the reasons why they're trying to sell the dog."

He says consumers should be on the look out for tell-tale signs the ads are fake.

"Any requests to send money overseas. Typically the response if you do contact the seller will often contain a lot of grammatical errors," he said.

"It's also the case that certain key phrases seem to be repeated such as the term 'potty trained' believe or not. They seem to use a common dictionary of phrases when it comes to describing the puppy and its background."

Alarm bells

Dogs Victoria is part of the Australian National Kennel Council which issues pedigree certificates for dogs around the country.

Chief executive Elizabeth White says ads like the one run by The Age should ring alarm bells immediately.

"Well it just makes you laugh really when you see that the dog is being offered for $600 shipping not included. A dog that was born here would have to have $200 worth at least spent on veterinary fees for initial inoculation and you know veterinary checks and so on," she said.

"And there are a number of other costs that are just not there. I don't see where they get a $600 from. So it's really, it is just a scam. It just sits out as a scam."

Mr Kell says the nature of the scam makes the chances of the perpetrators being caught very slim.

"Look these scams are very difficult to trace. There's no doubt that there is a link to international scam operations with these sorts of classified ad placements," he said.

"And that means that it's very difficult to go back to the origin and find out who's actually sending them.

"They move around quickly. They use fake addresses, fake names. So the best thing is to avoid sending any money in the first place."

But he says the sites and newspapers running the ads have been very helpful.

"Look [I'm] a little surprised that it managed to get to page three. But there's no doubt that these scams are becoming quite prevalent in both newspapers and online classified ad sites," he said.

"So we've been getting a lot of cooperation from these sites and the publishers to run warnings for consumers.

"Unfortunately it is the case that the scammers are making money from these operations and quite a lot of money. In Australia alone we're tracking reports to the ACCC of aggregate losses in the millions of dollars."

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