Scammer used Fort Worth addresses to steal $10,000 from people trying to buy puppies
More than a dozen people nationwide were scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars when they tried to buy puppies online through various businesses that used Fort Worth addresses, according to the Better Business Bureau.
The BBB uncovered 11 fake dog-breeding websites that claimed to be Fort Worth businesses and used similar or identical phone numbers. None of the phone numbers were active, and the websites were registered to a person in India, the BBB said in a scam alert.
Sixteen people reported they tried to buy a dog through one of the sites and never received the animal. In the past four months, the consumers were scammed out of a total of $10,000.
One person, who wanted to be anonymous, told the BBB he paid $699 to one of the sites, Fluffy Samoyeds, through Google Pay. He got an email the day his puppy was supposed to fly from Dallas to Pittsburgh that the dog’s crate was not allowed through airport security and the company needed an additional $1,900.
The puppy never arrived, and United Airlines later told the man the tracking number was fake.
A woman from Texas, Khira Vatik, told the BBB she went to physically pick up her puppy at a provided address after paying $699. However, she drove four hours and discovered the address was for the home of a random family, which did not know anything about the business.
The websites the BBB identified as fake were:
- Fluffy Frenchies
- Kingdom Chows
- Playful Frenchies
- Smiling Samoyeds
- Stone Akitas
- True Frenchies
- Fluffy Samoyeds
- Loyal Chows
- Pride Akitas
- Star Chow Chow
- Sturdy Bulldogs
The BBB offered these tips to avoid this kind of scam:
- Avoid buying a pet without seeing it in person.
- Never send cash via money order or Western Union to a stranger.
- Always use a credit card in case you need to dispute the charges.
- Do research to get a sense of what a fair price is for the breed you are interested in adopting. Think twice if someone is advertising a purebred dog for free or at a deeply discounted price. It could be a fraudulent offer.
This story was originally published January 13, 2020 at 4:35 PM.
