Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been getting allot of rip off email replies on what I have up on the classifieds, of people wanting to send more than the cost of the snake...then they want me to send the extra money to the person they want the snake shipped to. I'm just wondering if anyone else has had these kinds of scams someone's trying to pull on them with their adds as well.

While I've not had those types of scams sent to me from my ads here on KS, I have received them from time to time from various other accounts I have such as Ebay.

Obviously, these are scams not all that different than the old Nigerian scam emails everyone used to get years ago. This scam is, you get this money order, cash it at your bank, then give these people the goods and the "leftover" cash from the money order. The thing is, the money order is bogus and takes a certain amount of time for the bank to verify that it is in fact bogus. On good faith, the bank will issue you the money but once the money order is found out to be bogus, the bank will consider the amount you withdrew on that money order as money now owed to the bank regardless of the money order's authenticity or not. So then you will be out your merchandise as well as the cash you gave to the scammers.

Your best bet is to not only ignore the email but to report it (or forward it) to the proper authorities so that these scammers will get busted as there are people out there that do fall victim to such scams.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Got my first one from someone who advertises frequently on KS selling sub-ocs and BP's. "Stranded in the Phillipines, send $1400 so I can return home to California. Just got "relieved" of my wallet, credit cards, etc. " The embassy should be your first call if this was on the level, so message was deleted and forgotten till this brought it back. mike.