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Because Dogster thinks the world of rescuers, this is a special place for to discuss shelters, rescue organizations, rescue strategies, issues, solutions, etc. and how we can all help in this critical endeavor. If you are interested in fostering for one of these great organizations or on your own, here's the place to seek friendly advice. We also welcome shelters and rescue organizations to post here about dogs looking for foster homes but we recommend that you put your location in the topic of your thread so those close by can find you!
Our mom took in two rescues last month, Rally and Sally. Their owner died and his family did not want them. So mom placed an ad for them in Petfinder. She used a gmail address - thank dog! A few days later she opened her gmail account, and had six responses - all wanting information about Rally and Sally. However, you could tell that English was not their first language and they're questions were really odd. And in gmail, the headings usually say 'from [name] to me'. These said 'from [name] to someone who was not mom. A co-worker who is more gmail literate than mom is said they were spam. Who does things like that? If you can't trust Petfinder, who can you trust? Needless to say mom was very discouraged!
There are bits of harvester software that crawl the web collecting email addresses for spammers. Anytime, anywhere, that yo post an email address, it might get collected.
In Gmail, if you select the spam messages and then click on "report spam," and do this consistently, Gmail pretty quickly "learns" what messages you consider spam/unwanted, and then messages that are a lot like them get sent directly to your spam folder. You can check it periodically to see if there's anything you don't consider spam--and then mark it "not spam." But over time, you get to the point where you rarely need to do that.
With a little effort at the beginning, Gmail is a great way to rarely look at spam. Nothing except having a genuinely unusual email address and never ever posting to the web or an email list can ensure that you never get spam--and even that doesn't always work, because there's also software that generates random possible email addresses, sends email, and records what ones don't bounce.
When the english is really bad and they don't seem to have a good grip on what the animal is and often just refer to it as dog or pet, it is proably a nigerian scam.
Here is how they work. They pretend to be interested in whatever you may be selling. They ask if they can send you a cashiers check for more than you are asking. You should cash it and wire the rest of the money to someone, usually their shipper because they claim they live out of the US. Often, they have something going on to play on your symapthy, a daughter's birthday, a sick wife, a rcent misfortune.
You cash the check, send it on and never hear from them again. But since the check is fake, you are now responsible for the full amount.
Asher - that's so close to what they said. They all wanted to know how much I was selling them for, but wanted to reassure me that they would go to a loving, caring home! I just knew they couldn't be legitimate - one asked me what color Rally was - his picture was with the ad! I'm so glad you filled me in. I reported them as spam, but don't want to put their ads back on Petfinder because of that. I have them on PetBond and Best Friends right now - and no suspicious emails. Thanks for the info!
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