this is "nightline" -- >> tonight, vacation ripoffs. for this family it seemed like a dream getaway. >> $400 a night. this house is amazing. >> but it turned into a complete nightmare. >> there were total strangers in my house. >> before you book the great summer escape, check out what we learned about vacation predators lurking online. >> plus, animal madness. >> there he is. >> think we humans are the only one capable of complex emotions? a provocative argument that animals can lose their mind just like us. the surprisingly moving story of a depressed goat and what happened when he was reunited with his best friend. and, beauty backlash. she didn't win miss usa, she

didn't even come close. so why is miss indiana more famous now than ever. the body image controversy she has touched off tonight. but first, the "nightline" 5. >> am i missing a deadline? did i get there in time? am i going too fast? did i close the garage door? stay in your lane. i don't think i sent that e-mail. i should make a reservation. i thought it was clear. okay. brake. i didn't see that coming. >> its instinct to protect leaves you free to drive. lease the infinity q 50. for $369 a month. >> number one in just 60 seconds.

in the age of the internet booking a vacation is easier than ever. and it is also, unfortunately, easier than ever for con artists to rip you off. tonight you will see an especially diabolical scam ruining people's dream vacations something you need to be on the lookout for and here is abc's rebecca jarvis. ♪ >> reporter: i bet right about now you are dreaming of a beach vacation? or maybe a family trip to a big city. this summer, lots of people will be ditching the fancy hotels for apartments, booking them through web sites like air b & b, and brbo, watch out for vacation predators. those online offers aren't always what they seem. that's what happened at this house in lake tahoe, for our vacation predator case number one. fake ads online. i should have thought, wow, you know, $400 a night this house is

amazing. how could that be? i thought, maybe we were lucky. >> cherry mccaffrey booked this house in south lake tahoe last summerfor the extended family, all 14, on homeaway.com. >> her cousin joyce along with her husband and daughter got there first. while sherri was still on the road they walked right in. >> it was totally unlocked. >> sprawling, big place. >> the square feet. >> fully decked out. >> i felt like singing. i was so happy. >> there was just one problem. >> so i came home recently and much to my surprise there was a car here in my driveway. >> reporter: sean the owner had not put his home up for rent. >> i could see there were people milling around in my house i've took a peek through the slats of this house right here and recognized there were total

strangers mine house. i entered my house with some trepidation. >> all of a sudden we saw a man come in. >> the little girl sort of screamed. >> i was kind of surprised. i dent know widn't know who it . >> informed them i was the owner. >> ser you guys have been scamm. >> over the last two weeks i have confirmed episodes with various groups, families, believing that they were renting my properties when indeed they had been scammed. >> homeaway.com claims less than one in 10,000 listings are fake. but confirms there were ten other travelers who thought they had rented sean's house through fraudulent listings seen on their web sites. authorities are still looking for the cybercriminal who did it. chris elliott, author and traveler advocate says he has seen countless cases just like these. and how much money are we talking about here? >> most of the people who contact me have lost a couple

thousand dollars. some more than $10 t as far as scams go this is an epidemic. >> reporter: ask john and nancy don donor. >> in the past couple years we've been to. >> china, japan. south korea. >> vietnam, thailand. >> sing pour. >> bali. >> reporter: they consider themselves pretty savvy on line. they know the real deal these days booking apartments over hotels. >> renting apartments in large cities works out well for us. >> reporter: they fell prey to vacation predator case two. con artists who go fishing for your personal information online. john and nancy turned to vacation rental site brbo, and after clicking on several properties a great deal landed in their inbox. free laundry service, airport transfers, even a 20% discount. just one catch. john had to wire the money to the u.k. >> i did investigate a little bit.

looked on the web. i didn't find anything. >> he accepted the deal. even got a thank you. -mail with the rental agreement. but then. >> the website disappeared from the interinternet. supposed to be as soon as we get the money we will send you further details about the rental. that didn't show up. and then i began to say, well, gee what is going on here? >> they had been scammed. and here's how it works. a scammer is waiting to intercept e-mail addresses and contacts people directly. in many cases offering properties for rent without the real owners ever even knowing. so we got on the case for john and nancy. turns out the manager of the hot new york getaway said he was in london. so we fried tried to track him . >> i'm so, we are filming for abc news. >> reporter: turns out no management company here just an innocent person's house. >> i was just wondering if you realize this house address has been used online as an address

for fraudulent activity? >> no, no, no. no one living here. this house is -- an apartment. >> we traced the apartment from the scam artist to a listing inside this new york city apartment building. the owner decloond ined to spea us on camera, but told us people have shown up not realizing they've been scammed. there are thing you can do to protect yourself. first, never, ever wire money. use a credit card or paypal instead. verify who is on the otherened of that rental agreement. simply by calling. most legit listings will provide a phone number. try to use in-house systems that are m more secure. don't answer anything out of unusual channels. reverse google search. take the image of the vacation rental and run it through google images if it comes up on multiple sites, renter beware. >> you have to remember that

hundreds of thousand of people use these sites every day. without any kind of an incident. but use them in an intelligent way. >> one bedroom, one bath. in hip east village. hip. okay. >> as for the donors it hasn't stopped them from booking their next dream vacation on line. >> we rented an apartment for the time that we wanted to go. >> in the future, my basic smell test is going to be much more stringent that in is now. >> paranoid. >> but it was good enough to get by us this time. >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm rebecca jarvis, abc news, new york. coming up next here on "nightline" -- is it really possible to diagnose our pets with the same psych ological conditions as humans. the author who says yes, and points to this surprisingly moving story with a twist. in a. or the new ultimate: lobster-topped lobster --

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any one who lives with animals knows they have moods and sometimes the moods manifest in strategically placed droppings throughout your house. but can our pets actually lose their mind? tonight the author of a provocative new book and the depressed goat who she says proves her thesis. most of us prob bably don't thi of goats as having particularly rich interior lives. this goat, mr. g, is apparently genuinely depressed. a few days before this video was shot he had been rescued from the home of an elderly woman near los angeles who was

hoarding animals. for a decade mr. g had lived alongside a female donkey named jellybean with little food and no shelter. >> it was just really neglect. they lived in a relatively small paddock. they just weren't getting the care that they needed. >> but when the animals were rescued they were taken to separate shelters which is what sent mr. g into this deep funk laying in the corner of his stall, refusing to go outside, or eat, for six days. >> he went off food. in fact he wouldn't get out of his barn. he just sat there and, just, just seemed depressed. >> in a moment the extraordinary development that makes mr. g perk up for the first time. but first, kid this. >> humans. and other animals can laws their minds. and, ways that are, really similar. >> a historian of science who has written a book, animal madness, are gaugues humans and

animals are similar when it comes to their feelings. and like us, animals can lose their mind. dr. brakeman's journey began at home with this guy, her dog, oliver, who suffered from terrible anxiety. >> ate zip-lock bags, contents if there weren't food in them. snapped at flies he couldn't see. >> imaginary flies? >> yes, hallucinated a little at night. >> distressing? >> overwhelming. >> in her quest to find relief she entered into the world of animal slings who diagnosed them with o.c.d. to anxiety and prescribed anti-depressants for animals that chase their own shadows, pee all over the place or bite people. >> better to have this product in the background it decreases depression. >> when we diagnose animals with the same sorts of mental illnesses that we have, are we taking a lep here?

how do we really know what is going on with the animals. they can't talk to us. >> we don't really know what is going on with the animals. we diagnose people without asking them questions verbally all the time. children can get diagnosed with psychiatric disorders without indepth interviews. you can die agnesagnose a perso when they won't talk about their symptoms. we have an inborn bias recognizing these in other animals. >> in her research brakeman learned it is not only house pets taking antidepressants. >> bobby. there he is. >> this is bobby. a chimp, rescued from a lab where he had been taken from his mom at birth. and made into a research subject. he was so traumatized by that experience, that he started to do what humans in distress some times do. he hurt himself. biting into his arm causing serious wounds. it was beyond heartbreaking. any one who saw bobby didn't have to be especially trained to

know he was in severe distress. >> with the help of psychiatric meds he is now a new chimp. >> this make is my heart sing. >> what the doctor found in her research for her book is aside from med. >> you know you are a happy chimp when you start holding on to your feet. >> a huge factor in psychological recovery is love. even if it know it from your own species. >> do you love that bobby? >> is this okay? >> i have seen this in my own travels for "nightline." >> hi. how are you doing? what's going on? >> go get thecarrot? >> from babies given surrogate mother after their biological moms were killed by poachers. >> the food looks pretty good. >> to this baby elephant, found wound add lenin the fed and alot in cam bbodia.

and the elephant has benefited not only from human companionship but from an older elephant named lucky. they look to play soccer, spin their handlers around, and even dance the macarana. for a price of course. >> laurel says if we can learn to recognize that animals of all sorts, from elephants, to dogs, to pigeons, deer and chickens have true emotional range, it will change our attitudes about so much, from zoos to what we eat. >> this work should influence, i believe, how we think about -- the animals that are -- that are put in front of us to entertain us. and -- it also, ideally would change our food system. there are millions of animals in the united states with, with stereotypic or what look a lot like ocd behaviors. >> which brings us back to mr. g, the depressed goat, who misses his long-time donkey

companion, jellybean. one of the volunteers at the shelter offered to drive 14 hours round trip to pick up jellybean. the moment mr. g hears the donkey being unloaded he lifts up his head. >> as soon as he could smell jellybean. his nose started twitching. he perked up. then when he heard him and saw him. first, little mr. g couldn't believe his eyes. and he just got up and became almost instantaneously a different animal. he started getting up, running. want to jellybean. and put nez to nose. awe and put nose to nose. and there it is a little kiss. and 20 minutes later, mr. g eats for the first time in six days. an interspecies love affair that should give pause to anyone who doubts the emotional complexity of the animals with whom we share this world. dr. laurel brakeman's new book, "animal madness" is a available now. coming of next on "nightline," the beauty queen praised for

having a quote, unquote, normal body. but is this really normal. how she is handling the praise and the backlash tonight. feel like a knot. how can i ease this pain? (man) when i can't go, it's like bricks piling up. i wish i could find some relief. (announcer) ask your doctor about linzess-- a once-daily capsule for adults with ibs with constipation or chronic idiopathic constipation. linzess is thought to help calm pain-sensing nerves and accelerate bowel movements. it helps you proactively manage your symptoms. do not give linzess to children under 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to 17. it may harm them. don't take linzess if you have a bowel blockage.

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miss indiana didn't even make runner-up in the miss usa pageant held this week. she is the one making headlines and controversy tonight. here is my "nightline" co-anchor juju chang. >> indiana! >> when miss indiana stepped confidently into the pageant spotlight this week. she had no idea what was about to happen. within hours, she reached celebrity on twitter, an overflow of praise and comments for being curvier than the rest of the competitors. one person saying, finally, a contestant that is not a bag of bones. another writing, dear miss indiana thank you for looking like an average woman. >> were you surprised by the twitter reaction you got? >> i was blown away. never in my right mind would i imagine this would blow up. >> others, challenging the flood

of flattery. one person tweeting am i missing something? story on miss indiana looking curvy and normal because she is a size 4. in my book that is still really thin. >> her body was something that people were not used to seeing in the pageant environment or on tv in general. she is still not representative of the average american woman. >> reporter: you are 5'8", and. >> 137, 138. >> reporter: little bit of a backhanded compliment. here you are boeing called normal. when normal in this country is quite different size than what you are. >> i didn't take it as a backhanded compliment at all. because the response has been so positive. i wasn't being called fat. i wasn't called out of shape. i don't know what normality is, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. >> reporter: in an image obsessed society people are quick to judge. >> all the attention we are paying to her body we should make sure we don't in the process shame other women about the way that they look.

>> reporter: as for miss indiana she may have lost the title but she certainly won america's hearts. >> what makes you emotional? >> the feedback that i have gotten from girls. i never imagined that i would touch their hearts like this. and it makes me cry. and i'm very happy. in a very happy way. >> reporter: in a statement to abc new the miss universe organization who owns miss usa tells us they could not be more scared the response that miss indiana usa received. and that a fundamental principle of our company is to help women be comfortable and confident in their own skin. >> it warms my heart, that i can just, my 30 second on stage has touched so many girls' lives. >> for "nightline," juju chang, new york. >> thanks to juju. and thanks to you for watching abc news. tune in to "good morning america" first thing in the

morning. thank you again for watching. good night. heat shields are compromised. weare those thrusters burning? that's a negative. what's that alarm?

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