First and foremost, I contacted Kijiji customer support directly to inquire as to the boundaries of these policies. My initial contact was with their chat team, and I spoke with a gentleman who was quite nice and polite, however did not have the answers I required. He advised me to contact the help desk in an email, and I did so. That was a much less satisfactory outcome. However I did get some answers.
My first question was concerning "want" ads in the dog/puppy category. People were spreading the information that you would be charged for posting that you were looking for a puppy or dog. This was touted as a way to promote an adopt-only society, and that anyone who would buy a dog should be charged just the same as someone selling a dog. When I did get a reply from Kijiji regarding it, I was told that they do not charge for the want ads. However, numerous people continue to post in other categories when they have want ads... So I'm not sure how true the "not being charged" statement was.
My second question was, of course, why are shelters and rescues exempt. They replied that they intended to promote rescue and shelter dogs, and that these animals are more deserving of having a home than a dog being rehomed by a family. The responding individual also implied that there was something wrong with me for asking why the shelters were exempt. The way I see it, since Kijiji states they are giving the money from these adverts to shelters anyway, why not redistribute the funds a bit, and charge everyone for their adverts... which would eliminate my next problem with this process.
How do they screen to ensure that people who post as shelters actually are shelters? Both representatives I communicated with told me that they rely primarily on the community to report the wrongly categorized ads. They also stated that they rely on their partnership with Petfinder, to validate the rescues for them. Essentially, they are doing nothing other than removing ads posted as rescues that they don't think are actual rescues. The main problem I see with this, is that anyone can post as a rescue and have their advert posted freely. They also rely on IP banning to remove frequent rule breaking. Do you know what that means? Anyone with a basic knowledge of how modems work, and how their ISP works can get around these bans. Which allows people to continually break the rules, powercycle their modem to achieve a new IP and continue on their way. There are also tons of services out there that allow people to change their IP address without any actual work on their part, Proxy servers.
I tried posting an advert once the fee was in place, to see how hard it is to claim to be a shelter. Do you know how hard it is? You select shelter from a drop down. That's it. My advert was posted and able to be seen by several people, before I removed it. I don't know how long it would have taken for the advert to be removed, if it would have been reported or not. There's an entire group on Facebook who does nothing more than scour Kijiji looking for wrongly placed ads, posting them for other members to report. Happily, I have yet to see them posting any adverts from my area.
And of course, another problem comes from how they are marketing this change. They're saying this will help prevent the backyard breeders, the mill type breeders, the bad breeders. I see it as doing exactly the opposite. Small breeders who breed for the right reasons are going to be affected by this more than the breeders who throw two dogs together without worrying about health testing, or showing their animals, or giving prenatal care, or vetting the puppies. A breeder who merely has to worry about what they've spent feeding the dogs and is selling their poodle cross dogs for $1500, they're not going to think twice about paying the $5 fee to have their advert posted. The small breeder, who has a few dogs, shows them, has them health tested and gives them vet care? Those are the ones who will balk at paying the fee, and adding that onto what they've already had to pay to raise the dogs to 8wks. Those are the adverts that are going to stop coming up on Kijiji.
Another type of advert we're not going to see anymore? People trying to independently rehome their animals. The family who has fallen on hard times and can hardly afford to pay their bills, let alone feed the dog, or pay to give him away. The person who couldn't afford to have their dog fixed and ended up with a litter of puppies, and had the idea of selling those puppies to fix their bitch. The people who take in an unwanted dog, have it fixed, train it up and then try to rehome it. These are all people who aren't going to want to pay the $5 to advertise their dog, because they don't stand to make any money, or they simply don't have that extra $5 laying around. Where are those dogs going to end up?
There are a lot of people who quietly go about the business of rescuing a dog, getting it fixed, trained, etc, and then rehoming it. Those people aren't technically rescues, they don't call themselves or the dog a rescue, they do it because they saw a dog in need and wanted to help it. Those people will be unable to post their dogs as rescues, and will have to pay the fee. They are being punished for doing the right thing, because now they have to pay a fee to advertise the dog. Some of these people will continue to help, but some of them won't.
This fee isn't going to stop the puppy millers, the backyard breeders, the ones who use their dogs as walking uteruses. This fee is going to cause more abandonment, more pets in the shelter, more healthy animals being put to sleep. It's going to cause more people to buy from the bad breeders, because they feel that the breeders are being pre-screened by Kijiji. I see this fee as a very negative thing, and can't understand why others don't see it that way as well.