Man loses 6K in ‘pedigree’ dog online scam

DURBAN North SAPS has warned residents to be wary of buying items online. This comes after two fraud cases were opened this week. In the first case, a man attempting to buy a ‘pedigree’ dog on a classified website was scammed out of his money.

Capt Raymond Deokaran, confirmed a case of fraud had been opened.

“The man saw an ad for a pedigree dog online for R6 000 and contacted the person whose details were listed on the advert. The scam artists asked for the money to be paid upfront, which the victim did, only to find out there was no dog and the scam artists had conned him out of his money. He then tried to phone the number but there was no answer. Unfortunately, we are seeing an increase in cases like this.

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“In the second case, a man who thought he was getting a bargain for a Toyota Fortuna was scammed out of more than R20 000 after he deposited the money into the scam artist’s account. He was told by the suspect that he was moving overseas and was selling his 4×4 for R250 000. We are warning residents to be wary of scams like this. If it seems to too good to be true, in most cases it is,” he said.

He added while many online sellers are legitimate, some use the anonymous platform of some sites to scam unsuspecting shoppers.

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