Egg scam?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 23 Mar 2012 Posts: 1

Hello! My first post after a bit of lurking...

I think I was nearly scammed recently when I was searching for fertile eggs of a rare poultry breed. I found a contact and emailed them, they replied (in not quite right English) saying they had what i wanted and I could purchase a dozen for $75 including postage (not an unusual price). I asked to see pictures of the parent birds, which was sent. Then the seller instructed me that he had taken the eggs to a pet transport company (cant remember which, but it was genuine) and that if I paid them directly via Western Union... (small red flag) the eggs would be sent. He said i would shortly receive an email from them with payment details. THe email came very promptly, from a .yahoo address (medium red flag) and the email was patched together to look like it had come from the pet transport company (but crappy graphics and similarly poor unprofessional English).

I realised that it was a scam, and in the meantime had been googling images of the chickens I hoped to hatch, and came across the exact photos of the birds whcih the scammer had used (BIG red flag) on a UK poultry site (I am in Australia, where the scammer also claimed to be).

I confronted the scammer, pointing out the stolen photos, which he insisted were his (no explanation of how he took photos of his Australian birds in the UK - should point out the breed is not rare there, only here), I said i didnt want the eggs becuase I was suspicious, he complained I had wasted his time. I didnt want to tell him all of the suspicions I had, becuase I didnt want to alert him to change anything, hoping the next person he scammed would also pick up on it.

The thing I wonder is, though, why all that bother for $75??

I have really had a giggle on this site, reading the scambaiting letters! More power to you all!

Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:44 pm

Pet scammers will pretend to have any animal (or in this case egg) that is in demand, pulling info off the internet just as this scammer did.

As to why they'll go to this effort for $75? The answer to that is two-fold. First, $75 may not seem like much to you, but for a country (most likely Cameroon since it's a pet scammer) in which the average annual income is well below $5000, it is actually quite a bit of money.
Second, the scammer may not have stopped at $75. These scammers often come back for a second, or even third payment. For example, if you sent the $75, the scammer would have "shipped" the (nonexistent eggs) but in a couple of days, you very possibly would have received an email saying that the shipment was held up in customs, etc. pending some kind of insurance, certificate, etc. You would be asked to send more money covering that cost. Many victims will send a second payment, as they are already invested in the scam.