A con man (there may be more than one, but I’ll use the singular in this narrative) has created a number of fake Facebook profiles and is using them to scam other users out of many thousands of dollars. Evidently a very large number of people would love to own a Maine Coon kitten, but they are usually very expensive. The con man has no kittens, but he has been using this desire to scam people on Facebook.
He has used many different fake FB profiles to created at least five Facebook groups with himself as the administrator and where he poses as a Maine Coon cat breeder with kittens to sell at below market prices. Facebook users love pictures of beautiful cats and kittens and are drawn to these groups by the hundreds and even thousands.
As the admin of the groups the con man can expel anyone he scams from his groups and delete any post in the groups which warns others of his thievery. He always has an another of his fake profiles as a second group admin for use in case for some reason his original profile gets suspended, as has happened. He can then continue to run the group and pose as the “breeder” under a different profile name.
The scam groups I have found so far are: Maine coon kittens for adoption, Maine Coon For Rehoming, Maine coon kittens for rehoming, MAINE COON KITTENS FOR ADOPTION, Maine Coon for Rehoming, and MAINE COON KITTENS IN NEED OF NEW HOMES.. (Capitalization is critical to correctly identify the scam groups.) There are probably more that I have not found yet. (Careful: There are a few legitimate groups with similar names.)
The scammer also uses several other fake FB profiles in each of his groups to post glowing reviews himself as a breeder from people who supposedly have received his “kittens”. He also posts pictures of Maine Coon kittens derived from other sources in his groups and says that those kittens are available for “adoption”. He tells anyone who shows an interest in “his kittens” to send him a Facebook message. On messenger he tells them he is located near them, regardless of which state they live in. He then determines how much his potential marks can pay, agrees to sell them a kitten for that price, and then asks for advanced payment, usually in the form of a Walmart gift card or something similar. When some people say that they will pay when they get his address and pick up the kitten, he asks for an advance to hold the kitten “because others are also very interested”.
When I joined one of these fake Maine Coon kitten groups and inquired via a reply to a post about a kitten, I was warned by a lady via Facebook messenger that the “breeder” was a scammer and that he had stolen from her many hundreds of dollars. She also warned me not to send the con man “breeder” any money.
I wasn’t that interested in procuring a kitten anyway, but I decided to play along with the “breeder” to determine for myself if he was running a con job. When the “breeder” replied to me to send him a private FB message, I did, and we continued to communicate by FB messenger. He asked me where I was located, and I told him that I lived in Trussville, Alabama. He replied that he was located in an Alabama town about 50 miles away. (I then messaged the lady that had warned me off and she replied the “breeder” had also told her that he lived her state halfway across the company.).
The “breeder” asked me how much I could afford to pay for a kitten, and I replied $500. We agreed on a $550 price which he asked me to send him in advance. I asked him to provide his address so I could drive there and pay him when I picked up the kitten. (This was an offer that any legitimate breeder would readily accept.) He replied that I should send the $550 in advance to hold the kitten because there were many other people interested in the cat. I told him in reply to send me his address anyway and I would take my chances that kitten might already be sold when I arrived. He still insisted on a payment advance and then got somewhat hostile when I refused. That confirm to me that he was running a scam.
I HAVE TRIED EVERY THING THAT I CAN THINK OF TO ALERT FACEBOOK OF THIS ONGOING SCAN TO NO AVAIL! I simply can’t get past Facebook’s algorithms. Myself and others have reported the many profiles used by the scammer as fake. I have repeatedly reported posts offering kittens and those praising the “breeder” for posting false information and offering animals for sale. Until I received this offer to appeal none of my efforts were successful. One of the fake breeders FB profile was suspended for some reason, but the fake name of the “breeder” and admin of the group was quickly replaced by another fake profile. Magically the posts providing great reviews of the ”breeder” were changed to praise the new fake profile and apparently most group members didn’t even notice.
THE STEMIC PROBLEM IS THAT FACEBOOK DOES NOT PROVIDE A WORKABLE METHOD TO ALLOW USERS TO EFFECTIVELY REPORT SCANNERS AND FACEBOOK ALGORITHMS ARE NOT CAPABLE OF DETECTING THE CRIMES OF SCAMMERS WHEN THE CURRENT REPORTING METHODS ARE USED EXCEPT PERHAPS IN THE COMMERCIAL SECTION OF FACEBOOK.
Since I have not found a way to get Facebook to put the scammer out of business, I have been using Facebook messenger to try to warn potential victims of that the breeder is a con man and to not to send him money. Whenever I see a member of one of them Maine Coon kitten groups inquiring about a kitten and the “breeder” replying to send him a private message, I send a detailed warning message to to the potential victim. I have a standard warning message that I copy and paste into messenger to make easier to send these messages, but the number of these situations is overwhelming.
Over the last two months I have sent out many hundreds of those warning messages, but I am unable to warn everyone. Frankly this effort is taking far too much of my time, but I hate seeing innocent people hurt, especially those who can’t afford to lose their money. In addition, since I am not Facebook friends with the majority of these users, they don’t automatically see my messages. I am assuming many potential victims don’t ever see them or see them when it is too late.
Many thank me for my efforts to warn them in return messages, but I never hear back from many so I don’t know if they read my warning messages or not. Too many Facebook users message back to say that they too have already lost hundreds of dollars to she scammer.
I finally got an option from Facebook to report this ongoing crime spree to the Facebook Oversight Board, an independent board which investigates Facebook problems and makes suggestions to Facebook on how to solve them. I made an appeal to the board, but I understand that they can only look at very limited number appeals. I hope they investigate this one because people should not be losing hundreds of dollars to these scammers.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR OVERSIGHT BOARD CONSIDERATION: Put this scammer or scammers out of business by detecting their IP addresses, deleting all of their fake profiles and and groups, and taking steps to prevent their return to Facebook. In broader sense Facebook needs to update their reporting system to facilitate the reporting of con men and ongoing scamming operations. Facebook also needs to update their algorithms to detect on going scamming operations automatically when reported or to channel such reports to real people who can better determine whether reports of scamming are legitimate.
Cajun (Rick Guilbeau)