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Beware of the puppy scams

Abhean

Site Owner
Staff member
Owner
I have a friend that lost her Lab a few weeks ago. She has been looking for another dog to help fill in that gaping hole that her dog left. Well, looking around the internet she found another Lab pup that seemed to check all the boxes she was looking for. The "breeder" was within driving distance, though a little far for a "maybe" drive. She decided that she would put a deposit on the dog and then pick him up when he was ready. Strangely the seller wanted the deposit through "cash app". Money was paid and then the seller poofed. The website was still online, however, no phone calls or emails were ever returned. Now my friend is out of $300 dollars!

Everyone that has done internet searches looking for a new dog has seen just the "perfect" puppy on a website that is "magically" available and at the perfect age. Scams like this are as old as the internet itself. From a web designer's standpoint, it is so easy to set up a quick website and find random pictures of the cutest dogs and list them for sale. It would take me a few hours of work to get the site up and running. The cost would be under $100 dollars. I have seen deposits of up to $1000 dollars but most tend to be $200-500 dollars. So, I could probably scam enough people to make several thousand dollars before taking down the site and putting a new one up.

So what can you do to avoid this if you are going to buy a puppy from an online "breeder"?
  • The best way to avoid getting scammed is to put your hands on the puppy. Though nowadays people seem to rather want to "order" them.
  • Check the website. The last portion of the web address should be a ".com" or ".net" in most cases. If you see something like ".in" or something like that may mean that the website originates from a different country.
  • If the website address looks strange like 'something.somethingelse.com' or 'somethingelse.com/websitename' should also cause some concern. This typically tells you that the site is a subdomain that is used a lot if the scammers are running several different sites.
  • If you are tech-inclined you can check the metadata of the pictures on the site. Meaning that in some cases you can read when and where the pictures were taken. So if your target dog is supposed to be 16 weeks old but the picture was taken a year ago something is up. There are tools available online to allow you to do this like Metadata.
  • Talk with the seller over the phone. Ask lots of questions and make requests for more info.
    • Are the parents on site?
    • How old is the puppy as of this moment?
    • Can we go live via video chat so I can see the puppy?
    • Do you have the hip workup for the parents? Can you send me a copy?
    • Is the puppy registered via AKC or another registration group?
    • If so what are the parents' names? Look up those animals.
  • Email the seller, and again ask lots of questions. I have found more scams this way than other ways. Ask the same questions as the above. If you simply get a form-type response, send another and wait a day or two. If you do not get an honest email back from the seller you are looking at a scam. The reason I say to wait a day or two is that they may have an automatic email answer that sends every time it gets a new email. A breeder is out to sell their puppies, while an auto-sent email could be normal, a breeder will be on top of things and will send you an email asap.
Never use a pay service that you can't dispute charges with. Paypal is a decent service. I have seen them reverse charges pretty quickly when someone has been scammed.
 
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