The Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries is warning cattle buyers and producers about fake social media pages posing as real Alabama cattle operations, after one such page took more than $100,000 from buyers who believed they were purchasing bred heifers.
Since July, a family-owned Alabama cattle operation has been getting calls from people trying to buy cattle it never advertised, Deputy Commissioner Hassey Brooks told WBRC, and in recent weeks out-of-state buyers who had already paid showed up to collect cattle that did not exist. The heifers were offered at about $3,300 a head, just under market price.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency’s rural crimes unit and the Alabama Securities Commission are investigating. The department urged buyers to verify sellers, ask for references, confirm an operation is real and look closely at listing photographs, some of which are generated by artificial intelligence, before sending money.
