Listen on Apple Podcasts | Google PodcastsThis is part 1 of Yahoo Finance’s Illegal Tender podcast Season 6 ‘The Puppy Crimes of Quarantine’. Listen to the series here.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Google PodcastsThis is part 1 of Yahoo Finance’s Illegal Tender podcast Season 6 ‘The Puppy Crimes of Quarantine’. Listen to the series here. Listen on Apple Podcasts | Google PodcastsThis is part 1 of Yahoo Finance’s Illegal Tender podcast Season 6 ‘The Puppy Crimes of Quarantine’. Listen to the series here.
Story continuesAnother scam has come into my world and it's one that will break the hearts of animal lovers. The decision to bring home a new puppy during pandemic lockdown isn't flawed logic. A new puppy is a major distraction. It's a milestone moment that's cause for celebration. It gets the whole family involved, and overnight stay-at-home and shelter in place orders grounded us. All of the excuses people made to not get a dog suddenly faded.
People fell in love with pictures of floppy-eared fluff balls with puppy dog eyes, deals were brokered, contracts were signed, money was sent, and for some, a wild goose chase ensued because the alleged breeder was bogus. Stories from the heartbroken and conned are rampant. The Better Business Bureau issued a warning in May alerting consumers that puppy scams are spiking, with more reports about bogus pet websites in April than the first three months of the year combined. In 2017, the organization an in-depth investigation and concluded that at the time, at least 80% of the sponsored advertising links in internet searches for pets may be fraudulent.
Suzanne's a retiree who lives in sunny Southern California with her husband. She's a proud grandmother who recently became a great-grandmother. Suzanne's been a dog owner for years and recently lost a beloved Yorkie pup. During the pandemic, she started her search for a new four-legged companion. Both women followed leads from targeted Facebook ads. Between the two of them, nearly $10,000 was lost and some of it was never recovered.
But first, let's connect with Suzanne and hear her convoluted account of an alleged dog breeder who basically held her dog hostage because his friend's car broke down in Arizona and wanted Suzanne to pay for the auto repair. Here she is recounting how she lost close to five figures and her husband almost drove from Southern California to Denver to pick up a poodle that never existed.
Now, after I started looking for the puppy elsewhere, I didn't see anything that I liked better than this one particular puppy that he showed me, so I questioned ... it was only $884. Now, that should have been a red flag for me right there. If I would've been thinking about the cost of specially bred puppies and AKC puppies, I would've known that this was awfully cheap, and so-SS: Actually, it was ... maybe it was ... my husband told me last night and now I can't remember.
SS: No, drive to Denver. The second part was to get her out of the airport to pay ... I can't remember what his ... for one thing, he had a very thick accent, so it was very difficult for me to understand a lot of things.SS: On the phone also, besides texting. Texting was the easy part, I could've saved it, but a lot of it was verbal because the phone line went to this WhatsApp also.
Then, his friend, he says,"My friend James is going to be bringing her." So, I get a phone call from James and he said he's in Arizona. From the time they left, supposedly, and Ron, my husband said he probably never even left the state of Colorado. This is how untimely and unethical the whole thing was. He said his car broke down and he needed money to fix it.
SA: Right, but there's definitely public record of who owns it and who lives there, so I'm just interested if you can-SA: Yeah, you can definitely pursue this, but that's the reporter in me. We got to look this up, we got to see if this could be a dry cleaner, this could be a Mexican restaurant, we have no idea.
And so, then I started threatening. I was getting angry because I wanted this puppy very bad. I really started getting attached to whole idea of having- SA: I don't think there was ever Colorado. I don't think that anyone was ever in Colorado. I think that that was just a far enough away destination from you, but still commutable. How long would the car trip be from Southern California to Denver? What is that, multiple hours and hours, two days?
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Google PodcastsThis is part 1 of Yahoo Finance’s Illegal Tender podcast Season 6 ‘The Puppy Crimes of Quarantine’. Listen to the series here. SA: Do you know how many other people were in it and were there other people who were ... there's the page and you can post on the page and were there any other comments of people?
SS: So, all I can do to warn other people is just do some homework first. It's not worth the heartbreak. That isn't even including the loss of your money. When you start hearing about this little puppy or you fall in love with just looking at pictures and then you get nothing from it, it's heartbreaking, especially after I just lost a little one and I was missing that little companionship of a little puppy, so that's my advice to people is just do some homework.
And, I said,"Yes, and I'm not bringing out any more money. You either send it to him, or you find a way to get that puppy to me or I'll just have to get an investigator." I started threatening with a private investigator and a lawyer. I said,"I've spent this much amount of money and I still don't have a puppy.
The only time I've ever did anything with PayPal is when you make a purchase of a clothing item or something and you can use PayPal to pay it, and it goes through your bank somehow or a credit card, it goes onto a credit card I think is how it works. And, I didn't realize that I could get into a PayPal account until we got a phone call from them saying I owed them $3,000-something.SS: We're pretty close. That would be the money that he got and then I can't remember how ...
And, she's coming by ground I'm in contact. Well, I haven't heard from her today, but her driver contacted me to tell me that when approximately the time she'd be delivered depending on traffic and the circumstances, and how they handled them, and stopping for food and water and everything that's going on, so that I'm aware of her travels, and I should be hearing from her probably sometime today.
From there, I went and researched for puppy scammers and I actually posted the same story on about altogether five other places and I got letters thanking me.
The rest of the world needs to come together and intervene for Americans...
I don't understand something,if somebody can explain to me.who is the scam here,the person who refuses to get a pet from the shop for $2,500 with papers,and prefers to have it ship to him for a hundred dollar which shipping fee is included?
We're doing BLM this month...not puppies