Two English Setter puppies play on the front porch at the home of Bill Goodson Jr. The dog breeder was recently the target of an apparent scam when someone sent him extra money through a fraudulent check to purchase one of his puppies.

Bill Goodson Jr., an English Setter puppy breeder, was recently the victim of an apparent scam when someone sent him extra money through a fraudulent check to purchase one of his puppies.

Last week, Bill Goodson Jr. thought he was receiving a normal inquiry from out of state about one of the six English Setter puppies he was selling.

But things got stranger as the rural Lawrence resident took a closer look at the response he’d received to his newspaper ad.

An e-mail he received was written with poor grammar and punctuation. The potential buyer was trying to arrange a way for the puppy — who is bred for hunting — to be shipped to him.

But the biggest red flag came when Goodson received a check via FedEx for $2,850, way above his asking price. The instructions called for him to deposit the check to cover the price of the puppy and shipping and then send back the difference, upward of $2,000.

He didn’t do it because he’d heard of similar scams, and instead contacted federal authorities.

Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson said it appears to be a common scam where someone targets Internet classified ads for items that cost about $500 or more. The scam artists are typically out of the country, and they send fraudulent checks in the hopes someone will wire them money they can make off with.

“No legitimate person or business is going to send you more money than you need,” Branson said. “You should never, ever wire money unless you know who you’re wiring it to.”

He said one safeguard for consumers is to take the check to their bank and ask the banker to hold the check until the funds clear or don’t clear. That way if it’s fraudulent, it won’t affect their account.

Branson said Goodson did the right thing by not going along with it and contacting authorities.

Goodson, who lives with his family south of Lawrence, isn’t a major breeder, but he was selling his recent litter. He plays daily with the eight-week-old puppies as they run around his family’s property.

He’s heard of scams before, but because the ordeal involves puppies he said it’s making it harder for him to take.

“If I would have shipped this dog, what would they have done with it?” Goodson said. “They didn’t want the dog, they wanted my money.”