Mother Finds Her Seven-Month-Old Son For Sale On Craigslist (VIDEO)

You can find just about anything for sale on Craigslist, even, as one Massachusetts family discovered to their horror, your own baby. After receiving a tip that her son was being presented as a "cute baby boy" in the ad, the child's mother did some detective work and uncovered what appears to be an international adoption scam. KCRA.com has the details:

Brennan decided to play detective and sent an e-mail to the address listed. She quickly received a picture in her inbox.

"The picture he sends you is a picture of Jake," Brennan said. "It was horrifying. I never would have thought in a million years that I would have the emotional reaction that I did."

The e-mail claimed her son is Canadian born and living at an orphanage in Cameroon and said that for $300 she could begin the adoption process.

Watch a video report on the incident:

Comments

[dawlishgal]

My son is 39 years old, and had some adorable baby pictures taken by a professional photographer in Arizona (his grandparents took him to be photographed while we visited the Grand Canyon). Imagine our surprise when we saw one of those photos 3 or 4 years ago on an anti-choice billboard in rural MN.

Of course, nobody asked our or his permission and his grandparents have been dead for many years. These people who do the advertising must get photos or negatives of cute babies from estates of photographers. Don't they have any cute babies of their own?

[LITU]

W O W !

[ObamAtomic]

She not secure whom received the pics,somewhere she left her guard down.
The Internet is a serious business .

[getalong]

That's horrible!

Craigslist!? ... I would have used ebay.

[hegdehog]

It's one thing to sell a baby, but that bastard was stealing bandwidth by hotlinking the image of the kid! That's SO UNCOOL!

[factotem]

I hope she didn't pay full price.

[AgentMacGyver]

"from the Cameroon"? Confused with Congo perhaps.

[Kalie]

I always had an uncomfortable feeling about putting young childrens pictures on facebook or elsewhere online, and now I feel vindicated. Dont put your or anyones childrens pictures all over the internet. There are so many creeps and scams out there and it doesnt take a rocket scientist to defraud or even try to find your children.

[RRonin]

EXACTLY! Somebody found this picture on some social networking site and put it to their own nefarious use. A guy I know found his 1970 Dodge Challenger (taken from his car club's web page) for sale on Craigslist. It was ridiculously cheap, too. All you had to do was send them the cost of shipping (a few thousand dollars) and they'd send you the car! What a bargain!

[Tyler-Durden]

aw cripes man. i thought this was a missing child they found on an ad. it's just a picture? jeez that's a much less disturbing scam than i thought.

[GallopingCat]

People steal people's photos all the time for their own personal use. Any internet ad saying "she's looking for you" is probably stolen off of myspace. I don't see any difference.

I wouldn't be surprised to find eBay paying Fox News to run stories against craiglist, seeing the stories breaking recently about media payola.

[eshaneua]

Cute baby!!

[newtom]

I have had one of my pictures (which is posted on my Facebook profile) used at least twice by people posting on Craigslist. It happens all too often, and Craigslist does NOTHING to stop it.

[Tyler-Durden]

why is it craigslist's fault you put your mug on the public internet? if you drop a picture on the street, is it the city's fault if someone pins it up in a restroom saying you offer a "good time"?

[HekmabaJuzimax]

Yes. And now, I will sue the city. Wish me good luck!

[newtom]

I'm not blaming Craigslist -- just passing along the information.

You don't see my picture here, do you? It took me a while, but I've learned.

[Daly]

not craigslist issue; perhaps facebook could block copying unless it is the original poster. as this has happen more than once to you; is it required to have your pics on facebook?

[widdles]

Heh - any website can "block" you from copying a photo.

However, all one has to do is click the print screen button, paste it into any photo software program and crop it so all they have is just the photo.

There is absolutely no way that any website will be able to keep someone from getting an image that is on a website anywhere.

[Mum]

Does anyone really believe that the actual baby was being offered for adoption? It's more likely that some unscrupulous scam artist procured a photo of the baby somehow and used it to further the scam. Professional photographers often display photos of clients as part of their advertisements. Anyone with a mouse could easily have copied the photo from anywhere. My guess is that magazines, newspapers, and printing companies do not check up on the legitimacy of every photo that they print with an advertisement. Think about all the "before/after" ads. Are these photos vetted before they are printed? Anyone who would answer an ad offering a white baby of Canadian origin for sale for $300 in Cameroon and think that it was legitimate deserves to be taken for a ride.

[D-MI]

Am I the only person wondering what exactly this woman was looking for on craigslist when she found a CHILD FOR SALE?

Seriously. What category do you post that in?

[TestingTheWater]

Read the story again. Please note this time that the mother was "acting from a tip" that directed her to Craigslist. It does not say who gave her the tip. She was not, obviously, searching Craigslist to see if she could find kids for sale.

[newtom]

Read the article -- heck, even the "quick-read" points out that someone tipped her off.

[isaidit]

RTFA then comment. It's the best policy.

[Cubancoffee]

Perhaps the "only reads headlines" category.

[zorak1704]

I can't understand people these days, trying to sell a perfectly good white boy like that.

[johnqsittinzen]

Two dollars!

[isaidit]

Why perfectly good? Could be the next Hannity or Limbaugh or Cheney.

[Jaywalkker]

Depends on if you're a "nature" or "nurture" kinda person, I believe.