Tis the season for all sorts of faux poultry people to up their intrusions into our Facebook chicken groups with their scummy-scammy ways.

Here are some tips on how to recognize them, and what to do next.

Comments Off: A scammy post frequently has comments turned off — presumably so savvy group members can’t call them out in the comments. Savvy members do tend to post Grumpy Faces on the Scammy posts, so do heed those.

Private Message: A scammy post that does have comments on will often respond to inquiries with a request for a Private Message. A proper farm or breeder does not want to talk about their amazing birds in private messages — we want to talk about them in the comments so even more people can see and learn about our great flocks. Privacy is the anti-marketing. Visibility is the anti-scam.

Exotics: Scammy posts frequently have exotic hard-to-find animals. But really, if they had Star-Bellied Snitches, they wouldn’t need to post about it, would they, as they would already have a wait-list running into months. If you have time to waste, message one of these and ask about a made-up bird — “Do you have Gold-Laced Rhode Island Ayam Cerami? Oh you do? I am so excited!!” Yeah, right.

Spammy Friends: Scammers are often responsive to your ISO posts. You post you are in search of Star-Bellied Snitches, two or three people (all new members) reply “Check out my friend [linked] Scammy McScammerson’s Best bird Farm”. You click on Scammy McScammerson’s link and see lovely animals. You PM Mr. McScammerson. The first thing he does is ask for your location, (see below).

Non-standard English: Scammers frequently have non-standard capitalization, word-order, punctuation, and phrasing, as well as low numbers for Likes and Followers. Standard English would be Sunrise Chicken Farm, farm name would be capitalized in the blurb, “experience in bird farm” would be “experience in bird farming” and there would be a period at the end.

Location, Yours: Scammers ask for your location, so they can quickly google it and miraculously be located very near you. What luck! And they have Star-Bellied Snitches! They just need a deposit to hold the birds for you. Ricki here is asking the right questions.

I made contact and Surprise! the first thing they ask is my location. Notice the HUGE assortment. This is not a sustainable number of flocks.

Ohhh. He or she has Crested Star-Bellied Silkies! What luck!

And now for the Paypal Dance. “Trust me.” he says, in a slithery voice, “I am not a scammer.”

So back to our Crested Star-Bellied Silkies. I ask for details. He sends me cut-and-paste generic Silkie info.

Alas, never did tell me about the Dr, Seuss lines of his silkies, as he didn’t respond again. I wonder why?

SEO Clutter: Scammers posts will be stuffed with SEO optimization phrases that make no logical sense. What luck! Whether I am in Anchorage or Amarillo, they are the bird supplier for me! And every single breed! Amazing.

Identity Confusion: Scammers will often have disconnects between page name and content, they can’t keep their false identities straight. Who is Mason’s farm? And why isn’t it Mason’s Farm?

Friends and Family: Scammers ask for deposits and payments to be paid Cash App or Zelle (no recourse if you are scammed) or Paypal Friends and Family. They will say they don’t want to pay the fees. Even if you offer to add a little to cover, they don’t want that, because they don’t want you to have any recourse when you don’t get any birds.

Phone Number: Scammers ask for your phone number so they can “Send you a verification code to send to them.” Yeah, right. That code is what is sent when someone tries to reset your password and hack into your account. When you send them the code you just hacked yourself. This is also a FB Marketplace scam. I usually tell them my number is 867-5309.

New Accounts: Scammers have new accounts, few contributions to the group, no history more than a handful of days, and their personal profiles are very sparse.

Stolen Pictures: Scammers can’t share pics of their own flocks, because they don’t have any! So they lift pictures off other sites and use those. Grrrr. Do you know how to check for stolen pictures?

What can you do about FB Scammers?

What can you do? Report the scammy account to Facebook. Report the scammy post to your Group Admins. Insert a link to this article into the conversation: https://tinyurl.com/ScamBeGone