The Stages of a Pet Scam: Why Didn’t My Puppy Arrive?

Author: Jack Whittaker (PetScams.com)

For many people, the arrival of a new pet at home is a special and heart-warming moment. However, imagine a scenario where you have bought a pet online from a website and it never arrives. In fact, this is more common than you might think and there is now a booming online industry of fraudsters who sell pets that do not exist, thereby breaking prospective new owners hearts as well as their wallets. This article will provide a breakdown of how pet scams work, a scam modality that has skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic according to the US Better Business Bureau, Action Fraud (UK), and Australia’s Scamwatch.

The Hook

Typically, pet scams are organised into two main stages called the ‘hook’ and ‘sting’. The first stage is simply about the scammer getting you, the consumer, emotionally and financially invested in whatever animal they are claiming to sell whether that is a puppy, kitten, parrot, tropical fish, monkey, llama etc. In many cases, they will often create a fake website advertising the animal, however, it is not unusual for scammers to simply advertise on third party platforms too without operating a website. Petscams.com, a voluntary initiative partnered with Scamadviser, has a huge list of these fake pet websites, over 18,000. Scammers may employ countless tricks to advertise these websites, some of the most popular are through Google ads, Facebook Groups, Twitter pages, and Pinterest ads to name but a few examples. In a 2017 study, the Better Business Bureau estimated that at least 80% of the sponsored advertising links that promote pet websites belong to these scammers.

Figure A: Real Examples of Pet Scam Websites on Google Ads

Once you have found a scammer’s website and sent an enquiry, they will often send a scripted reply offering pet wellbeing items, promises of after-sale documentation, and a pre-fictionalised history of their non-existent business. Here is a real example taken from an academic study to illustrate one such response:

“Thanks for submitting your inquiry and nice to know that you have interest in our sphinx kitten. He is still available. We are located in Allen TX, We sell each for $500 and shipping is $200. BILO will cost a total of $700 to have her shipped and home delivered. He will come along with the following papers: Health Certificate, 1 year health guarantee, Complete medical record, Crate, Playing toys, And a hand guide that will help you on basics of taking good care of the kittens.”

Pet scammers may also try to convince you that they are running a perfectly legitimate business by using religion as a means of pressuring potential victims. Below is another comment found in the same paper which illustrates how they might do this.

“we’re a God-fearing Christian family and cheating people of their hard-earned money is not of our faith”

The purpose at this stage of the scam is for the scammer to convince the victim to make a deposit payment as quickly as possible. A typical trick is for scammers to promise same-day delivery, despite this being impossible in many cases.

‘Told me they can ship the pup same day and guarantee delivery to my door within 5-7 hours. Shipping from Minnesota to Ohio in 7 hours is amazing....amazingly false’

Once a victim is sufficiently convinced by the scammers ‘script’, they usually request that payment is made using a non-refundable payment method so that the victim cannot cancel the transaction. Current preferences are for victims to pay using Zelle, Paypal Friends & Family, Western Union, Moneygram, Walmart to Walmart money transfer, and giftcards. In some circumstances, however, particularly in the case of pet scams in South Africa and Australia, victims are regularly asked to transfer the deposit to a bank account.

At this stage of the scam, it is also important to note that scammers will pick random addresses conveniently located across the country from the potential victim’s location. There have been cases of innocent third parties who have had up to 50 people turn up at their address trying to find a breeder that does not exist.

The Sting

Once a deposit payment has been made to the scammer, the next stage of the scam begins. Typically, a pet scammer will attempt to revictimise the consumer by assuming the identity of a shipping company. Petscams.com also keeps a collection of these websites and they can be found here. During this stage, scammers will continuously introduce shipping and other fictitious fees until victims either run out of money or twig that they are being scammed. The most common fee is for a so-called refundable temperature-controlled shipping crate to ensure that the body temperature of the pet would remain constant during the shipping process and to resist the 'harsh temperature of the atmospheric conditions', despite the fact that planes already have pressure and climate control in their cargo areas.

During this stage of the scam, the scammer will simply invent new stories to try and defraud as much as possible from victims. One case involved a woman who had been defrauded of $10,000 because the scammer claimed that there had been a plane crash and the puppy died, which had resulted in significant legal costs. Scammers may also attempt to blackmail or impersonate government agencies, particularly when buyers are attempting to import exotic animals that are protected by CITES. In the case of a recent arrest, an offender had even impersonated the US Supreme Court by forging a seal. Pet scammers are also opportunistic and have adapted to the COVID-19 by introducing new fee so-called ‘quarantine fees’ into the shipping stage of the scam.

How to Avoid Pet Scams

Here are a few simple steps for avoiding pet scams:

1. Always visit any animal you are attempting to purchase before placing a deposit on it.
2. If the first step is not possible, at the very least have a video chat with the breeder and make them show you the animal live on video.
3. Use a reputable breeders directory, such as the American Kennel Club (AKC) in the case of US buyers.
4. Avoid paying for an animal using a non-refundable payment method.
5. Beware of “too good to be true” offers. If an animal is advertised at 25-50% off this is likely too good to be true.