Yesterday we ran an ad purporting to be from someone looking to give away Golden Retriever puppies to a good home.
Two readers who answered the ad have since been in touch. One said that the initial reply they received from the person placing the ad sounded off. The other told us that the person, after an exchange of emails, said she would send the puppies once she received payment of $125 each for shipping them to the “nearest airport.”
This sounded very suspicious to us.
We searched online and found the same or similar ads in numerous online newspapers in the US and Canada, dating back six months in some cases, and even including the same typo in the ad we received. It included a phone number that we didn’t publish and it’s apparently from North Carolina.
Our policy is to run only ads that are from our area. The phone number perhaps should have been a tip-off that this ad didn’t seem local, but as more people use cell phones we increasingly see unfamiliar area codes in ads from local people. As well, the last name in the ad, not an especially common one, is shared by several people here.
While there is no firm proof that the ad was a scam attempt, it raises red flags. We’ve removed it.
When responding to ads, here or anywhere else, keep these tips from the RCMP in mind:
- Where possible, conduct transactions in person, in public and in cash.
- Don’t provide passwords for e-transfers before receiving an item. It can be extremely difficult to reverse an e-transfer sent to someone with autodeposit active.
- Beware of ads offering popular or hard-to-find items at a discount.
- Do not send deposits to hold items. Also, it is illegal under the Residential Tenancy Act to require a deposit to apply for tenancy – any rental ad requiring a deposit is likely a scam.
- Use a reverse image search program to see if the pictures in the ad have been used elsewhere.
- Remember that social media accounts can be faked or compromised – just because someone is linked to you through a community or friends does not mean they are trustworthy.
In future we’ll be more diligent about verifying that ads we receive are local and legitimate.
