Avoiding Scams and Puppy Mills

Buyer Beware

Always use common sense when dealing with others online, especially when money is involved. When trying to avoid scams, your safest bet it to meet the seller and deal with them in person. When that is not possible you need to take extra precautions because scammers love to hide behind the safety and of the internet and take advantage of the extra opportunities it provides them to rip you off.

Before you part with your money, do some research. Here are some tips:

1. Make sure the seller really has a dog to sell

When buying a dog online, you don’t just need to worry about the health and quality of the dog, you have to make sure the seller really has a dog to sell.

Try entering the sellers name/email/kennel name/dogs names into google and run a search. Look through the results to see if you can find some past information on the sellers dealings. You might find a discussion of the breeder in a forum, or even find the owners of some of the dogs from his breeding program that would be willing to talk with you about the quality of their dogs. If you cannot find any information on the seller, that does not necessarily mean it’s a scam. The breeder might be new in the business or maybe they are a very small operation with only a litter or two a year.

Next, have the seller provide you with copies of all documentation they have on the animals. If they claim that the dog is a purebred that has been registered with a club, there should be a pedigree and club certificate to back up that claim. Don’t just take their word for it! Once they get the documents to you, you can do some research on the document by googling the names, addresses or anything else on the documents.

At this point, the seller should have already provided you with some pictures of the dog. Ask for more. If things still don’t seem right, or you think the images might have been ripped from of the internet, have the seller send you a picture of the dog with a certain item in the picture that you tell them to put in there (eg local newspaper, can of soup, brush). The images should not have a watermark on them (or a scratched out water mark!) unless it’s a watermark for the kennel you are dealing with. Most likely though, the images will not have a watermark at all and the absence of a watermark is not an indication of a scammer.

Fortunately, with the brightness turned up a little, the scratched out watermark on this doctored image was easy to spot.

2. Beware of adoptions (with a shipping fee)

This is popular scam method. The scammer will offer a high quality, expensive breed up for adoption because he can no longer care for it. He will also include some pictures of a beautiful, quality dog that he ripped off the internet along with a sob story about why he can no longer care for the dog. All you have to do is provide a loving home for his dog and pay a few hundred to have it shipped to you. If you pay him the shipping fee, you will be out a few hundred and Fido will never arrive. The next email you get from the scammer will be a story about Fido being stuck in customs or that the shipping container did not meet the airline guidelines and that he needs you to send him some more money to get Fido onboard and on his way. Don’t fall for these stories. The only time you should ever pay to have a pet quality animal shipped to you is if you are dealing with an established, reputable breeder.

All unsolicited adoption offers are a scam. However, just because a dog is offered for adoption does not necessarily mean it’s a scam. Many seller will offer dogs for adoption if the animal is born with genetic qualities that make the dog unfit to be entered into a show or competition. These are pet-quality animal and they can be a great deal for you if you just want a friend and do not plan on breeding the animal or entering it into shows.

3. Avoid Puppy Mills

This can be the most difficult part. If you can meet the seller and see the animal in person, this will not be a problem. If you are dealing over the internet, you need to do some research. Unless the kennel is very new, there should be plenty of information to be found on the internet. If you cannot find any information about the kennel or seller on the internet (other than the information the seller put there), you’re best bet is to stay away. The seller might be a legitimate, quality breeder, but he needs to build up his kennel by dealing locally before expecting people to purchase from him over the internet sight unseen.

Your goal here is to avoid puppy mills. A puppy mill is a breeding program run by a breeder who is in the business for nothing other than a quick buck. Puppy mill dogs are poorly cared for and do not receive regular veterinary care. They are fed low grade food and are often kept in small cages without socialization or exercise. As a result, their health, and their offspring’s health, deteriorates quickly. Puppy mills will often use a broker (middleman) to help distribute their puppies. Never use a middleman, always deal with the breeder.

One illegal method puppy mills use to pawn off their puppies is bait-and-switch. The puppy mill will use stock photos of champion dogs and claim they are the puppies parents. They also send pictures of a beautiful, healthy puppy. Once you pay them they will ship you a sickly puppy that is obveously not the same on in the photos. But you, being the compationate, kind-hearted person you are, decide to keep the puppy and try to nurse it back to health since you can’t possibly send the poor little guy back to the people who didn’t care for it. So you keep the puppy and send an email to the breeder cursing him out. That’s what the breeder was hoping you would do. He deletes the email and puts the money in the bank. It’s how he makes a living. Please be sure to report the seller to the local autorities and any dog clubs that the seller is in. Also, try to sue them to get your money back.

Pet-abuse.com tracks cases of puppy mill abuse and other animal abuse. You can search the database for keywords (like the owners name, kennel name or address) to make sure the breeder has not been involved in any reported abuse cases. However, many puppy mills operate legally and go under many different names. So, just because the breeder is not listed in the database does not automatically mean he’s reputable.

Also, a puppy should already have his club certificates (like the AKC certificate) available at the time of purchase. There is plenty of time between the birth of the puppy and the time for it to find a new home for the breeder to file for and receive the club certificates. If a breeder gives you a story about the papers coming in soon or that the puppy has been approved and you just need to send something in to receive the papers, it’s a scam. On a side note, club certificates are not proof that a breeding program is reputable or that the animal will be healthy. In fact, many dogs that come out of puppy mills have club certificates.

You need to find a breeder who is passionate about advancing and improving the breed’s quality and standard. These breeders care enough about their puppies that they will interview you to determine if you are good candidate to be the owner of one of their puppies.

4. Beware of Escrow Services

Escrow services can be a great way to keep a transaction above board. It can also be a simple way to hand your bank account information of to a scammer who will be more than happy to reallocate your hard earned cash. Scammers will sometimes set up a great looking escrow website that will look just as good, if not better, than a real escrow company website. They will use the service you lull you into a false sense of security with the idea of an escrow service keeping the transaction open and honest.

You can go here to look through fake escrow sites:

http://db.aa419.org/fakebankslist.php

5. Learn the methods of a scammer

You can find plenty of information online about a scammers methods. There are certain terms, methods, and phrases that are used by most oversea scammers that should help you identify the offer as a scam quickly.

  1. They request small “advanced” payments
  2. They request that you use Western union wire transfers (it’s like cash, unrecoverable)
  3. They are unable to meet with you in person because {insert reason here}
  4. Email includes an unrequested sob story, or a listing of professional and/or religious credentials
  5. A third party gets blamed for any unexplainable problems
  6. Everything else gets blamed on a health issue
  7. The email goes into too much detail and gets off into stories that are irrelevant.
  8. The offer is too good to be true.

6. The Surefire Avoid being scammed

Meet the breeder in person, view the dog in person, pay the breeder in person, bring the dog home with you. You may have to make a long road trip to do this, but it just might be worth it.

Seller Beware

If you are selling a dog on the internet, you also have to watch out for scammers. Sometimes the scammer just want what you’re selling. Other times, they just want you to send them money. Yes, you read that right! Here is how it works:

They scammer will make an offer to buy the animal from you. Normally, it’s a really good offer that is WAY over your asking price. But smarter scammer might go the opposite route and do some fake haggling to make you think they are a legitimate buyer. After you agree on a selling price, they offer so send you a few hundred dollars (or even thousands) extra in case you incur any other unforeseen expenses. They tell you that since you seem to be an honest seller they will trust you to send them a refund if there is anything left over after the transaction is complete. They will send you a well-made counterfeit check that the bank will be more than happy to cash or deposit for you.

You then make all the shipping and handling arrangements and find you have $500 left over. Since you are a honest seller, you send that REAL money back the to the scammer. Week later, the check is discovered to be fake and YOU are held legally responsible to return the full amount to the bank (plus any fees). You are now out of $500 and the scammer has pocketed $500. Hopefully, you have not already shipped the dog. Hopefully.

 

Don’t comfort yourself thinking that you’ll be able to spot a counterfeit. This counterfeit looks so real a bank would be happy to cash it.

Example Scam

I have been dealing online long enough that I have received literally hundreds of offers from scammer. I normally just hit the delete button. But I decided to play dumb and get a small collection of emails for you to read.

Below is a transcript of email sent back and forth between myself and a scammer. This scammer was using the adoption-for-a-fee method to try and scam me. Hopefully it will be a fun read that will help you get to know how to scammers operate a little better. My leading him on is called scam-baiting. It’s considered dangerous and is not recommended, but I thought it would be a good chance to help out those who are just starting out dealing online see how a real scammer works.

“Barry Mayer” is the name this scammer is going by.

From: barry mayer <rev.barrymayer@gmail.com>

Date: 2/2/2009 12:38 PM

Good day

miri is 14 weeks old  ,potty trained and home raise,she is also update on all her shots and has receive routine medical checks she is also well cared for with  top notch food.Many people are asking to adopt our maltese but we can not afford to give her to any person unless we are very sure that he or she can take proper care of her .We dont feel comfortable selling her .All we need for her is much love and care .Have you had any before?Are you a God fearing person and  how can we be assured that you will take good care of her?.We hope to read from you .she is still available and we hope that she will  go to a good home,she is just so full of energy and loves to play and walk around the house .we will miss her very much for her love,passion and affections.

our job is so demanding and i dont have much time to take  proper care of her since our son  who was always around to take care of the baby has gone for research in asia. so really i need to give out the baby.

hope to read from you

Have a nice day.