Online fraud
Date: January 09, 2007Source: mykawartha.com
A Peterborough woman thought she was getting a great deal when she saw an online ad for a purebred female Maltese puppy.
She had to pay only $350 shipping for a pup that would normally fetch as much as $1,200.
But weeks after contacting the owner, she was nearly $500 in the hole and still had no dog. She had been scammed.
According to Phonebusters, a Canadian agency that tracks telemarketing and Internet scams, she isn't the only one.
"It is a nationwide scam," says OPP detective constable John Schultz, Phonebusters' call centre manager.
"We're seeing it appear right across Canada and the U.S."
He says the ads appear in newspaper and online classifieds. Typically, the seller is someone supposedly related to a church who says they are going to Africa or a Third World country and has to get rid of his or her beloved pet.
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