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  • Geebo 8:00 am on April 19, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , monkey, parrot, pet sales, ,   

    Why you should never buy a monkey or parrot online 

    By Greg Collier

    Whenever we talk about pet scams, we’re usually talking about the puppy scams that happen online. The puppy scam usually happens in one of two ways. Either you’re being charged for fees and expenses for a puppy that doesn’t exist, or you’re being sold a terminally ill animal from a backyard breeder. For these reasons and more, Geebo.com stopped accepting ‘pets for sale’ ads years ago. However, it’s not just puppies that can be part of these scams.

    Recently, the Better Business Bureau of Michigan warned consumers about a website that claimed to be selling small monkeys and parrots for $1,000 to $1,500. The website claimed that they had a physical address in Michigan which actually turned out to be a home belonging to someone who had no idea their address was being used in this way. The scammers were collecting money by Western Union, MoneyGram, and Bitcoin. Just like the puppy scam, the scammers kept asking victims for additional payments for things like insurance and shipping costs. The primates and parrots didn’t actually exist and victims have complained about losing thousands of dollars in the scam.

    There’s another more important reason why you shouldn’t be buying these animals online and that reason is cruelty. If someone is legitimately selling a monkey or parrot online, there’s a good chance that they’re part of the illegal exotic animal trade. Parrots are often smuggled into the country in cruel ways where more parrots are dying than ones that survive the trip. Baby monkeys that are put up for sale are often taken from their mothers and kept in squalid conditions before any sale.

    Pets like dogs and cats have been bred over the millennia to be domestic companions for humans. Parrots and monkeys are both wild animals that really shouldn’t be kept in a captivity as a pet. That’s not even taking into consideration that both animals require constant care and attention. If you’re thinking about purchasing one of these animals either online or in a store, please do some research on the drawbacks of owning such an animal.

     

  • Geebo 9:00 am on December 10, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , pet sales, , ,   

    Puppy scams are wrecking the holidays 

    Puppy scams are wrecking the holidays

    Before we get to the heart of the matter, please don’t buy a pet for someone as a surprise gift. Any pet is a responsibility that should be taken seriously and not done as a whim.

    Now it seems between COVID and the upcoming holidays, puppy scams are becoming more and more common. The most typical puppy scam is when you buy a puppy online and the supposed breeder keeps hitting you with fees and expenses. Often the scammers will say they need extra money for insurance, shipping, or a special crate that the puppy needs. Other times, they’ll ask for extra money for supposed problems that have come up in shipping or supposed medical needs for the puppy. Then not only is the puppy never delivered, but it also doesn’t even exist. Recently, there seems to be a rash of these kinds of scams. We’ve seen reports from people who have lost $300 to someone who lost $9000.

    Just because someone has a website and claims to be a breeder, that doesn’t make them one. Scammers can have a website set up in minutes with pictures of dogs that they pulled off of Google Image Search.

    Your best bet is to always shop local from a reputable breeder. Do your research before purchasing a pet. Do a web search with the breeder’s name and the words ‘fraud’ or ‘scam’ to see if there have been any complaints against them. A reverse image search can often tell you if a fake breeder is pulling images off of other websites which is a definite indicator of a scam. Avoid any offers that are below the usual price for that particular breed. That’s how scammers often lure in their victims.

    As always, we recommend adopting a pet from your local shelter. Some shelters even have waiting lists if you’re looking for a particular breed. If you’re not looking for a particular breed we still recommend visiting your local shelter. Not only will you save a lot of money but you never know which animal there will capture your heart.

     

  • Geebo 8:54 am on September 7, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , pet sales, ,   

    States looking to ban pet leasing 

    States looking to ban pet leasing

    I’ve posted about pet leasing before. It’s a predatory lending tactic used by some unscrupulous pet stores. It’s almost like leasing a car as in you don’t actually own your pet but more like you’re renting it and you have the option to buy at the end of the lease. In many cases, the pet stores getting people to sign up for these leases are not divulging the full details of the lease and new pet owners are often surprised by all the additional fees the lease entails. Many critics of pet leasing say that it unfairly targets low-income families and that many of the pets leased come from puppy mills. There have even been instances where pets have been repossessed and then euthanized.

    The states of Nevada and California already ban pet leasing and now legislators in both Pennsylvania and New York are looking to ban the practice as well. Sadly, the practice of pet leasing is considered legal by the Federal Trade Commission, however, the leases need to comply with the Consumer Leasing Act. If lease companies and pet stores are being cagey about the details of the payments then they are in violation of the law.

    As stated previously, Geebo does not accept pet ads since many of the animals advertised on classifieds can be sick and abused animals from puppy mills or disreputable backyard breeders. As always, as animal lovers, we recommend that if you’re looking to have a furry addition to your family that you either go to a licensed breeder or even better, adopting from your local shelter. We also encourage adopting older dogs from shelters as often, they have a harder time being adopted. Either way, if you adopt a pet in these manners you won’t have to worry about your pet being taken away for failure to make a payment.

     

  • Geebo 9:43 am on July 31, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , pet sales, ,   

    Pet leasing is another reason to avoid the pet store 

    Pet leasing is another reason to avoid the pet store

    It should come as no surprise that we are animal lovers here at Geebo. In the past, CEO Greg Collier has discussed why Geebo does not accept ads for pets. In too many instances, online ads for pets can be an outright scam or they can be from abusive puppy mills. We also often recommend not going to a pet store as many of their pets can also come from these mills. Now, there’s a predatory lending practice being used by some pet stores that should give you another reason to avoid them when it comes to purchasing pets.

    CBS News reports that pet leasing is a new practice used by some pet stores that get consumers to pay way more for a pet than it may be worth. In the example shown in the CBS article, one woman ended up paying $5,000 for two dogs through a lease that she could have bought for $1500. The fact that some pet stores and leasing companies are engaging in this practice really shows how little they care for the animals in question. If they are charging such exorbitant leasing rates that means they’re expecting to repossess a number of these animals. What happens to the animal then? Are they trying to flip the animals like one would a house? What happens if the animal ages out of adoption as many people would rather adopt a puppy than a grown dog?

    As usual, we always recommend going to a licensed breeder if you have your heart set on a certain breed. However, we very much encourage going to your local pet shelter to adopt a pet as the fees are much more reasonable and affordable. You may also want to consider adopting a full-grown pet as sometimes it’s harder for them to find a home. If you choose to pursue a new pet through either of these avenues you won’t have to worry about someone coming to your home looking to take your family’s new member back.

     

  • Geebo 9:01 am on June 22, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , pet sales, , ,   

    Sick dogs continue to be sold on craigslist 

    Sick dogs continue to be sold on craigslist

    When someone is in the market for a new puppy, they often look for one with their heart and not necessarily their heads. Scammers of all shapes and sizes love to take advantage of the emotional response people tend to have after seeing a puppy for the first time. Not surprisingly, craigslist is often the venue scammers use to pass off as many puppies as they can.

    A couple in Rancho San Diego, California, found this out recently when they adopted a miniature dachshund off of craigslist. The couple even admits they ignored some red flags once they saw the puppy. Those red flags were that the puppy was being sold at a too good to be true price and that the seller wanted to meet at a parking lot and not where the dogs were allegedly being bred. Days after adopting the puppy the dachshund became sick and a vet diagnosed the puppy with distemper. Sadly, this is an all too common occurrence on the unmoderated craigslist.

    While purchasing a dog off of craigslist may give you that instant satisfaction of getting a puppy that day, in the long run, it’s worth taking your time to research the seller. You could be buying a dog from either a puppy mill or backyard breeder who is more intent on just making money than ethically breeding these dogs. Often these dogs have parvovirus which is contagious and can affect other pets in your household. For these reasons, Geebo does not accept ads for pets as we do not want to contribute to what is essentially animal cruelty. As always, we recommend only adopting pets from shelters or licensed breeders.

     

  • Geebo 10:38 am on June 30, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , pet sales   

    Woman has puppies stolen after posting ad online 

    Woman has puppies stolen after posting ad online

    Previously, Geebo CEO Greg Collier posted on this blog why you shouldn’t post ‘free to a good home’ pet ads online. I followed it up more recently with a post about how the animals could be used for pet-flipping. Now a story out of California shows yet another reason why offering or selling pets online is never a good idea.

    A woman from Fresno, California, posted an ad online for her Husky puppies. This brought a man to her home whom she said asked all the wrong questions and that he had brought a little boy with him. Later that night someone had hopped the fence and stolen the five puppies. Not only could these puppies be either flipped, abused, or sold for research but now this woman has had strangers at her house who could have cased it for possible additional robberies.

    As Greg mentioned in his initial post on the subject, if you’re going to sell or offer pets for adoption your best bet is to reach out to your own personal network or a shelter that has a good record on re-homing animals. Posting pets for sale or adoption online just invites too many forms of trouble not only towards the animals but also into your home.

     

  • Greg Collier 10:46 am on July 8, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , dog fighting, , , pet sales, , , spca   

    Free to a Good Home? A Bad Idea Online! 

    nopetsAny business owner needs to stay ahead of the trends, and unfortunately, that applies to trends in crime. I’ve said before in blog posts and TV interviews that we don’t carry personals because they can be used as a front for prostitution and human trafficking. We don’t carry pet sale ads, as they often trade in animals that have been bred through puppy mills—breeders who literally breed animals to death, leaving them undernourished and caged without proper exercise or loving contact. We simply won’t even take a chance at supporting criminal industries, so we don’t run the ads that market them.  
     
    Recent stories are showing that it’s not just online pet sales that can pose a threat to pets, but online pet adoptions, as well—often posted by well-meaning folks, under the heading, Free to a Good Home. Ads giving away dogs, cats, bunnies, and other animals to “good” homes may be posted by owners for a number of benign reasons, though they may lead to a life of pain and misery, and even death, for pets. 
     
    Remember the days of summers past when you’d ride down the street of your neighborhood in the back of your parent’s Pontiac or Buick, probably without a seat belt, and definitely without a car seat? You might pass a lemonade stand or a kid and his mom or dad on the corner with a cardboard box reading, “Kittens For Sale,” or, if you were really lucky, “Free Kittens.” No one thought anything of it. We survived, and for all we knew, so did our pets. But if not monitored, the reality of today’s digital marketplace can be a whole lot scarier for animals, just as it is for humans.
     
    The SPCA reports that animal abusers troll online classified sites looking for free animals, and they know just what to say to put unsuspecting pet owners at ease. Some abusers have even brought unrelated children to meet pets and pet owners in an effort to appear nonthreatening. Small animals offered “free to a good home” or to be “rehomed,” such as rabbits and cats, have been used as live snake food. Dogs have been found used as bait to train other dogs for dogfights. And crooks or kill buyers sell these free animals to research facilities or for slaughter.
     
    It’s not just household pets that face danger: While slaughtering horses for meat is illegal in the United States, it’s not in some other countries, such as neighboring Canada and Mexico. Kill buyers can often outbid adopters, and have taken advantage of the financial downturn to buy up horses on the cheap for transport and slaughter for meat. This poses a serious health risk to humans, as horses in the US are considered companion animals, and as such are often medically treated with drugs toxic to humans.
     
    A pet is a member of the family. Be sure you’re financially and emotionally prepared to keep companion animals—healthily—for the duration of their lifetime. Though if you must rehome for an unavoidable reason, it’s simply not safe to give away or sell animals to strangers via online ads without conducting strict home assessments and background checks. Most folks aren’t equipped for that, so volunteers at the SPCA suggest that anyone looking to rehome a pet work through their personal networks first—friends, neighbors, coworkers, church groups, their vet’s office etc.—maybe that’s why the neighborhood “Kittens For Sale” seemed to work fine back in the day? We all knew each other! 

    If your personal network doesn’t yield a reliable home, a reputable rescue group or shelter with good statistics in rehoming animals can help. Doing the right thing by your pet may take a little longer, may require just a bit more time and attention, but their health and safety is in your hands, and it’s worth it. We care about your family as we do our own, and that includes your pets. That’s why we don’t run Free to a Good Home ads at Geebo, and we hope you won’t anywhere else.

     

    • Theresa Dixon 4:08 pm on August 25, 2014 Permalink

      Very good advice. I try to tell everyone I know about this very thing. Spread the word.

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