Couple lose $300 after buying lamb through Facebook butchery page

Author: Tom Rose,
Publish Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2026, 8:59pm

A Hamilton couple claim they have been swindled out of $300 after ordering a lamb carcass from what they believed to be a legitimate butchery operating through Facebook.

Albert Newton, 33, said he was filing a police report and warned many others may have been caught up in the ruse.

“We said that we can pick it up by ourselves, but they only offered delivery service,” Newton said.

“We didn’t doubt them, we just trusted them.”

Police did not respond to queries about whether it was aware of the incident, group or similar schemes allegedly selling fraudulent meat, citing privacy restrictions.

Attempts to contact those behind the Facebook page have proved unsuccessful.

Albert Newton says he paid $300 for a lamb advertised in a private Facebook group by what appeared to be a legitimate business but it never arrived. Photo / Facebook

Weeks ago, Newton’s wife was added to a private Facebook group, “Premium Meat Supplies”, of 8000-plus members.

Admins are purportedly based in towns and cities across New Zealand and Australia, and can be seen sharing the same WhatsApp number and email address under posts.

“I don’t know whether they are real people, but they have lots of admin accounts, and they keep posting the advertisement,” Newton said.

His wife initially contacted the main admin page to query an order but couldn’t agree on price, so the page owners offered her a discount or free cutting when she returned to purchase.

“Last week, they contacted my wife again and said, ‘Yeah, we can cut the meat free for you’, so my wife agreed,” Newton said.

“After I paid, I asked them [for an] address and they didn’t give me theirs.”

While admins have continued advertising lamb and beef carcasses in the group, Newton said communications abruptly changed after he made the bank transfer.

“They will ignore your call, and they don’t want to reply to you.

“But if you insist, if you send many messages, they just say, ‘I’m busy, sorry’.”

The scam uses a private Facebook group and several different admin pages to target unsuspecting shoppers. Photo / Facebook

His wife later commented below one of the posts to warn others about the purported scam, but she was subsequently removed from the group.

The Herald also joined the Facebook group in an attempt to contact its admins but was removed after seeking comment.

A Rotorua woman found herself in a similar scam last year, losing $250 after purchasing what she thought was a whole lamb from the Facebook page, “NZ Meat Supplies”.

Consumer NZ generally advises Kiwis to practise extra caution when selling or buying goods on Facebook or other social media platforms.

“It’s not just your money at risk during a transaction on an online marketplace,” ex-investigative writer Ruairi O’Shea said.

“When you buy or sell on Trade Me or Facebook Marketplace, you might be giving away a significant amount of personal information.

“If you’re paying for something by bank transfer and having it delivered to your home, you might be giving a stranger your name, your account number and your address.”