Scammers lure platform users by posting a photo of an injured dog. Subsequently, they may seek to extort money from them.
The text and the photo have everything to move, but it is a scam. “I hit this pup with my truck. He’s alive but he can’t stand. I feel so miserable. I took him to the vet. He’s not chipped. I know someone looking for him. Please bump this post to help me find this owner,” a Facebook post read.
The latter circulates accompanied by the photo of a bloody little dog, an injured paw and a sad look. However, as pointed out The Telegramthis type of publication is increasing on the social network.
Many identical posts
Indeed, near-identical posts can be found on many local self-help Facebook pages. Thus, this same little puppy was knocked down in Lorient, Marseilles, Rennes, Narbonne and many other cities in the country.
Versions written in English can also be found, which may explain the approximate syntax of the texts in French, certainly translated using an application.
In addition, the profiles at the origin of these fraudulent publications very often bear the same name, like Ella Schmidt or Elise Pierre. The Telegram also notes that thanks to a reverse image search on the Internet, we discover that the photo of this dog was taken in 2018 in New York, in the United States. At the time, two dogs were thrown out of a car window in the middle of a highway.
Money transfer request
The objective of this kind of scam is to get in touch with benevolent Internet users who are worried about the fate of the canine. Then the scammers can ask for money, for example to pay for veterinary bills.
More widespread, there is also, in the same style, the urgent donation scam. Regularly on Facebook, it is possible to find ads that say they need you to adopt an animal, often following the death of the owner, a move or a child allergy. After a first contact, the scammers ask for a bank transfer, in particular to cover the costs of transferring the animal. Thereafter, more news.
To protect themselves against this kind of publication, the urgency of the request, an approximate syntax or the impossibility of commenting on the post – to prevent other Internet users from pointing out the scam – can alert Internet users.
