 Scam Alert
Be
careful out there!!
You can now forward spam directly to the Federal Trade
Commission
at SPAM@UCE.GOV without using the complaint form.
FTC Spam Homepage
Learn how to avoid and how to make a complaint.
Additional resources:
www.scamdex.com
www.joewein.de/sw/spam.htm
Scam attempts are blanketing the Internet!
Classifieds Scams are world-wide issues that have become widespread in targeting sellers
everywhere on the Internet. Often this involves buyers from Nigeria, Africa, Holland and
other countries. Know your buyer!! Are they
a musher? If not, why are they buying sled dogs or sled dog equipment?
Never send money to anyone
as a refund for the difference in your asking price and a promised Cashier's Check or
money order (they are counterfeit).
If you are offered or received a check or money order for over the asking
price
most likely it is a scam. Your bank will initially accept the check/mo and it may clear
and allow you to draw money against it; however it will eventually bounce..
If you receive an email that doesn't sound quite right, delete it.
Often the emails are written in broken English, contain misspelled words and are not
appropriate for the ad they are responding to. Answering in any manner will only encourage
further contact. Know your buyers. If you are advertising to other
mushers via Sled Dog Central, you should have a good idea of what questions they will ask,
what they consider important, etc.
The scam artists are now using both regular and operator assisted phone calls
to reach out and touch you!!
The phone companies know they are scammers, but say there's nothing they can do about
it. If you receive an operated assisted call, I suggest you tell the operator you
will not accept the call. They have also resorted to regular phone calls and your
only protection is to question the person on the other end of the call to determine their
knowledge of mushing and where/how the dogs, equipment, whatever will be used. The
basic scam pattern should show up pretty quickly.
The Basic Scam runs like this: They offer to have a third party send
you a cashiers check or money for more than the price you are asking and you are suppose
to wire them the balance. However, the cashiers checks/money orders are fraudulent and by
the time you find out, they have the money you wired them. Not only are you out the money,
but you have unknowingly participated in bank fraud.
The scams evolve from time to time
so use common sense if you receive inquiries that just don't sound right. We
continue to research and revise email address coding to diminish contact, but nothing
works 100%. Even our new email graphics are not protected because the scam business is so
desperate that they manually type in the addresses.
If you have any questions on the various scams, please e-mail me at
webmaster
s/Judy Bergemann
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