How to Avoid Getting Scammed When Looking for a kittens. Every day we find photos of our cats from different scammers. In this article we will tell you how to protect yourself from the actions of scammers.
There are people who unwittingly or due to some circumstances deceive themselves by making a transfer of money for a kitten allegedly to the breeder, but in fact they will never see this kitten. I won’t get tired of repeating the same thing, there are many red flags to avoid falling into the hands of scammers:
- Any cattery that wants to protect itself and the buyer puts copyrights on photos and videos of a kitten.
- The date written on a piece of paper next to the kitten means nothing. If a fraudster under the guise of a buyer asked to write the date on a piece of paper, the breeder must also write the buyer’s name. This is done so that the fraudster does not use this video for his own selfish purposes.
- Many catterys have a website with all the necessary information. If a breeder is engaged in breeding or plans to do it for a long time, he needs a website. Most scammers don’t waste time writing their own content for a short-lived website. Thus, they find someone else’s site and copy all the information to themselves on a fraudulent site. For example, on our website we regularly write articles, publish new photos and videos of kittens. All full information is available on the official website of the cattery.
- Any breeder, at the request of the buyer, can show the kitten by FaceTime (WhatsApp, Messenger, Skype, etc.).
- Reviews and recommendations are one of the important components of fraud protection.
- Each cattery has a certain style of presentation of kittens and it almost does not change throughout the time or they change, but certain features of the presentation of information remain unchanged, if you see that photos are taken in completely different places, rooms, photos of a kitten are presented in an amount of 1-2, then these are 100% scammers. As a rule, scammers are poorly oriented in breeds and they may even confuse breeds.
- Recently, scammers have been using numbers in email, for example ~”catterymainecoon87@gmail.com or usamainecoonforsale@gmail.com”. Enter the email address in Google, if it does not give information, it means that the email is new. The cattery has a unique email without numbers and other signs, as a rule, this is the name of the cattery for example “catteryfirestone@gmail.com” this is the email of our cattery FIRE STONE, which has a unique name Look closely at this.
- Do not be lazy to find out more information about the breeder. In any association you can find or ask for a license to carry out cat breeding activities.
- You can ask to show a photo of the kitten’s parents. The pedigree of the kitten’s parents also has a professional breeder.
- Never send money before studying all the necessary information.
- Learn how to search and check photos of kittens in Google or Yandex by pictures. This is very easy to do. If a scammer has stolen someone else’s photo, using a small tool, Google or Yandex can easily find it and show all the sites on which you used the same photo.
- If you have become a victim of cat scammers, you can try to file a complaint with the registration authority of the scammer’s website or in support of Facebook, Instagram, and so on. For example, we managed to get Instagram to delete photos in the fraudster’s account only from the third time and it took more than a week.
It is important that you take your time choosing a breeder to work with your kitten. Now you have all the necessary information to know how to avoid fraud. Prepare the necessary questions to make sure that the breeder is 100% legitimate and you feel comfortable buying a kitten.