So there have been various goat scams for longer than I’ve been in goats. The same as you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, don’t jump at a goat deal that seems too good to be true. To be clear it is possible to get amazing goats sometimes for not too much money. However you need to make sure it is the deal it claims to be.

Basic goat scam detection

Most goat sales still happen on Facebook. Though of the ones that happen elsewhere much of the advice here applies. One of the hardest part of this is that you aren’t supposed to sell animals on Facebook, so things happen in a round about way. The biggest thing you can do to look for scammers is to look at the Facebook profile of the person with which you are interacting. This is the case for both buying and selling goats.

How old is the profile?

The biggest clue is the age of the person’s profile. You can see this easily for pages, but not as easily for people’s profiles. One of the things you can do is scroll back through their post and see the first post they have available. You can also look at their Profile Photos as well. Click on their Profile -> Albums -> Profile pictures and scroll down to see their first profile picture.

New pages should always be treated with suspicion. Most people that wanted to have a Facebook account already got one a long time ago. Occasionally people had to make a new one for one reason or another but this is the exception not the rule.

Who are their friends?

Another thing to look at is their friends list. Is there anything suspicious there? You might try to figure out the age of their friends’ profile by looking at profile pictures as well.

Can you see any interests, posts, etc….

Then you can generally look at any other public information. Does it look like they actually live near you, did they check-in at a nearby business? Have they said anything about goats on their profile.

Are those really their pictures?

Another thing to do is try to determine if the pictures they are using are really theirs. You can do a Google Reverse Image Search for this. From the Google Search bar you click the camera button and then get an upload screen for the image. Download the images they are using, especially the goat photos and feed them in here and then Google will show if they are used elsewhere on the web. If they are already being used elsewhere then it is a scam. The exception would if the image shows up on the website of the farm they actually claim to be, but if their profile seems suspicious then don’t trust this.

Buyer beware goat scams

The biggest thing to be aware of when buying goats is if someone asks you send a deposit. When you are first buying goats you probably don’t need to purchase them from far away, you should be able to find goats near you where you can physically meet to exchange the money and goat. If you don’t feel comfortable doing to their farm or they to yours you can certainly meet in a public place for example. I have exchanged many a goat at gas stations near my house.

Personally I would not send deposits unless I already had met the person. The exception to this might be some of the fancy well known farms. Though I don’t tend to buy goats from far away. I explain some of this in my post Expensive Goats: When $1000 + $1500 is not $2500.

If you absolutely want that goat for some reason then I would suggest having live video calls to see the goat. Ask lots of questions and make sure you get a good look at things. This would be much harder to fake and would be a good way to see things. If they are hesitant at all to do this then you should likely back out.

Seller beware goat scams

One of the biggest things to keep in mind for the seller scams is someone sending you money in a way they can get it back. It is possible someone local might use this scam where they pick-up the goat and then can get the money back, this of course doesn’t work with cash. In this situation they are sending you a fraudulent transaction which will appear in your account but then get reversed.

In this scenario they would likely line up a buyer for your goat, get that person to send them money and then have you and that person meet. You would get the fraudulent transaction in your account and then the buyer would have paid the legit money to the scammer. This is a more complicated situation and I’m not sure how often it happens. There was one time where someone was trying to set-up a goat sale and then have their friend pick-up the goat. I backed out because something was fishy and they weren’t willing to bring cash for the transaction.

Too good to be true

I gave a couple examples of ways to check-out profiles and look for scams, but the biggest thing is to keep in mind if anything feels weird trust your gut. Investigate and ask lots of questions.

Some of my advice might make it hard to buy goats from people that are legitimate and have other reasons for acting a certain way. For example it is possible their farm doesn’t have good enough bandwidth for a video call or they have their Facebook profile way locked down for privacy reasons. Being scammed can put you out a lot of money though and I am of the opinion to be safe rather than sorry.

As far as the meeting someone in person and exchanging cash, this is not without its own risks. I haven’t bought or sold a goat this way to a stranger for a high dollar amount. If I were to I would make sure to take additional precautions.