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A very serious matter has come to our attention and we feel it is our duty to inform our users regarding any type of large-scale fraudulent activity that may be taking place related to the horse industry. We strongly believe in educating everyone to create an environment that is beneficial to both the buyer and the seller.
We do our best to intercept, record, and report contacts of this nature here on MyEquineSource.com while protecting your email address from public display. We hope you will read this warning because you may have horses for sale on other sites that do not take these measures.
People selling horses are receiving buyer inquiries from a third party regarding the purchase of a horse from a potential buyer in Nigeria, Africa, London, Hong Kong, AND OTHERS. This inquiry commonly attempts to arrange the purchase of the horse with a cashiers check covering the price of the horse and shipping. After the horse has been shipped, they commonly ask you to refund the shipping charges as part of a “finders’ fee” arrangement. They may also send you a check larger than the purchase price and ask for a refund of the difference.
Unfortunately, the CASHIER'S CHECK IS COUNTERFEIT. This fact is not uncovered until the horse and/or your own money (the difference in the check they send to their victims and the lower sales price of the horse) have been forwarded to the scam artists.
This scam may take various forms including purchasing frozen semen, tack, equipment, using WIRE TRANSFERS, even scammers posing as SELLERS on our sites, etc. but all of the emails we have seen have various similarities including misspellings, bad English, foreign countries, and making offers for a client or other third party.
Reporting Fraud
Reporting to Scammer's Email Provider: We have noticed that most of these scams are coming from free web-based email accounts. You can usually report this scam to the email provider by send a copy of the scam email to abuse@[EMAIL-DOMAIN-NAME].com for the email address that is being used by the scammer and the provider may close the account. It may help to visit the website of the email provider by going to www.[EMAIL-DOMAIN-NAME].com where you can look up their abuse policies.
Fraud Prevention Tips
To help you in recognizing these types of scams, we have provided below a list of indicators. They are only guidelines, and as always, use common sense.
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Big Promises
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Claims such as offering more money than the asking price without an initial conversation regarding the horse are almost always a sure sign of a scam. Be careful of any individual who wants to send you more than your asking price.
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Cashiers Cheque (note spelling) for MORE than Your Asking Price
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They will send you a (COUNTERFEIT) cashiers check or certified check (usually spelled cheque) and ask you to send the difference to them or their shipper by wire transfer or Western Union.
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High Pressure Tactics
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Be wary of individuals asking you to speed up the transaction beyond your comfort range. Again, a legitimate deal probably isn't going to move as fast as your money. Don't let yourself be pressured -- think things through.
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Requests for financial information.
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Don’t give out any bank information without establishing a comfort level with the buyer or seller.
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Always get something in writing.
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You should never complete a transaction without first writing down the terms of the deal and have each party sign it. If you can’t afford a lawyer to draft up a contract, you still should write down the terms of the deal in plain English and get it signed. Any buyer or seller that is hesitant or resists is usually a sure sign of a potential problem. | 
