As I sometimes do, I throw various search terms into Google Images to see if I come across something new.
I often find that people have used my photos, as I do have a diverse collection of interesting (at least to me) creatures. In most cases, I do not mind too much unless a person is putting my photos of my tortoises up on their Facebook pages and things like that in order to drum up business.
So I came across an ad using one of my babcocki females I acquired. Nice big battleaxe of a gal despite the pyramiding. Anyway.... Yeah, so the person copied a portion of an ad I had posted on Kingsnake late last month and adjusted a few parameters.
I had my cousin (more of a good family friend, as we are not related by blood, but whatever; I call him my cousin) over, so I was lucky enough to get him to send this person an email asking to whom and to where payment should be sent, and so on using his hotmail/Outlook account. I did not want to use my account in case the person who copied my ad recognized my email address, so Alex Athanatos graciously obliged.
Attached are screenshots of the ad, the address look-up on Google Maps/Streetview, and an email response I received.
If this had been a more direct scam, the individual would not have told me it had sold and so on. Instead, I was redirected to another site that is a scam store that uses many stolen photos from many members of this and other boards.
www.worldoftortoise.tk I believe the intention is to drive marks to the aforementioned site for the actual scamming. I believe the ad was simply a vehicle for a redirection to said site.
This email address also appears to be associated with scams for wood fuel pellets in Iceland and possibly other scams in Russia.
Anyway, I wanted to make folks aware both for my sake and theirs that scumbaggery is going on in case they see an ad posted of my animals that is not actually posted by me. I hope it saves somebody some heartache.
I am Nick Anastasiou for justice and I approve this message.
