MILWAUKEE — When the baby formula Facebook group, Milwaukee Formula Parents, first started in May, the goal was for parents to help each other find baby formula by posting pictures of where it's in stock.
It has since turned into more of a buy, sell, trade group, and not everyone has good intentions.
"We have over 2,000 members now, which is great, and I would say 99 percent of the parents that are in the group are great, awesome, helping each other out, are literal saints. But, we have seen more and more of the scams going on," said the page's founder, Samantha Wiegele.
Wiegele is warning members to be cautious of people in the group selling formula from out of state, and asking to be paid upfront electronically.
"They'll be like, 'Here, I have this formula, I can ship it to you' and they'll say just pay me what it costs to ship it,"' said Wiegele.
When they do, the parents don't ever get the formula and now they're out money too.
"I would say that the majority of parents who have told me about being scammed, lost anywhere from $30 to $90," said Wiegele.
Click hereto read the I-Team's recent interview with the BBB about other baby formula scams being reported.
Wiegele stresses she wants to protect members in the group who are following the rules. She recently warned them about scams on the page, offering tips like don't pay for formula to be mailed to you, meet in a public place for an exchange, pay in person, and if you see something suspicious, report it to the group moderators.
"We look at every post before a post goes live and that's able to weed out a lot of scams. But with 2,000 members, there's a lot of comments and everything on each post, and we can't keep track of every comment, every direct message, anything like that," explained Wiegele.
Wiegele also stresses on her Facebook page that "buy, sell, trade" is at your own risk and that the page isn't liable for the actions of group members.