The Holiday Scammers are out in force!

Attention sellers! It looks like everyone is getting their fair share of scammer emails this holiday season. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about these. But we will be using this page to post the emails of any of these people that we find have been sending out scam inquiries for your horses. Hopefully, the search engines will pick up their emails and spam the he!! out of them! Whatever you do, if there is a link in their email, DO NOT CLICK ON IT.

Some of the telltale signs that this isn’t a serious buyer—

• Text in the email is very clumsy, obviously English is not their first language.
• Their questions about the horse are very general, and usually they’re asking about a price or to see “recent pictures”, when we all know you have these on your showcase listing already.
• They may already be asking you where to send the money.
• They say they’re sending a shipper. Further, some of them say they want you to pay the shipper and include it in the sales price.

The way their scams work is they say they’re sending you a check, or making a wire transfer to your account. The check arrives, you deposit it, and then 10 days later you’ll get a notice from your bank that it’s a fraudulent check, or the payment has been stopped on the check. Same with the wire transfer. No one ever shows up to pick up the horse.

If you receive an inquiry from someone using one of these emails, we encourage you to forward it to several different anti-phishing groups, so that they can try to track them down and stop the scams.

• Forward it to the Anti-Phishing Working Group: reportphishing@apwg.org
• The Federal Trade Commission: ReportFraud.ftc.gov
• Submit an Internet Crime Complaint, which goes to the FBI: ic3.gov

Below are emails that have been reported to us as coming from scammers.

Sleethm974@gmail.com

Have you received an interesting scammer email? Forward a copy to us and we’ll add their email to our list above, so other sellers can be on the alert!

Want to have a little fun? Are you bored? Bring out your inner Best Selling Author and send the scammer a response! Below is a thread from a recent scammer sent to a real MorganShowcase seller. We replied and got another response from him.

Here’s our creative response, and we attached a cartoon drawing of a broken down horse to our email:

Hello, Mr. Seeth:

Yes! [horse name] is still available!

[attach a photo of a broken down horse, you can find these by Googling]

We would love to sell him to you for the very reasonable price of $98,000 US (we prefer gold bars), that will have an 8% state sales tax on the price, bringing the total to $105,840. He is a wonderful horse, he eats at least 2 50# bales of hay every day, and he LOVES to sit in your kitchen and watch you cook. Carrots are his favorite snack! Don’t overcook those, he likes them crunchy! He also has a cute habit of reaching around and savaging his riders, ripping off their boots and jeans, so you may want to wear a good pair of chaps!

When can we expect your payment and a van to pick him up?

Happy holidays, I’m assuming they celebrate Christmas wherever you are?

And his reply:

———- Forwarded message ———
From: Mike Sleeth <sleethm974@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Subject: Re: Inquiry on [horse name] from MorganShowcase
To: MorganShowcase

 

Hello good morning, this is  Mike Sleeth, sorry i haven’t get back to you sooner, i have been occupied with my wife birthday arrangement.I’ve carefully go through your add on the site and I’m okay with the picture on your post.
Am interested in immediate purchase one of  your  horse (no breed and color preference) i am interested in buying the Horse for my wife for her upcoming Birthday.
Kindly get back to me with your best price with tax if require, I will also like know more about the horse.  
send me the recent picture of the available horse if any.
My Wife is a very good horse ridder and I promise your Horse is coming to a good and careering family if you agree in selling the horse for me and my wife,  and she will so much happy to have the horse on her birthday day so  she can have a joyful and glamours birthday.
I will be taking care of the shipping fee and pick up from your address. I’m willing to cut you a Cashier Check as the mode of my payment and I’ll be responsible for the pick-up at your location after you’ve got the check cleared
I want you to understand that horse will be pick up from your address by my shipper as soon as the check clear and have your money complete. I will like to know if you accept a check as a means of payment?  (IF YES) kndly get back to me with your full details to mail out the payment as soon as possible

Full Name to be on the payment ………..
Address to mail the check to ……..
City, State, Zip Code:………………
Cell Phone Number:………………..
Last Asking price ………………

As soon as this is provided, payment will be mail to you through UPS or USPS and I will let you know the tracking number of the package. I will also add an additional $50 for keeping other buyers off till my check gets to you, also delete the posting or mark as sold. I hope we handle this in good faith and honest while waiting to hearing  back from you.
Pleasure doing business with you
Have a wonderful day

Best Regards

NOTE: We have forwarded his emails on to the authorities.