Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defined scam as a clever and dishonest plan for making money. Scam is a menace to every walks of life. It is not peculiar to a profession or vocation only. It is also not limited to a particular country, continent or race. It is worldwide. Social media and other online platforms have become tools in the hands of scammers to swindle people of their hard earn money and property. This has made it difficult to identify genuine people in the social media space. We will be looking at some of the ways the criminals go about scamming dog lovers and breeders in this article.

Let us proceed with no much ado to some of their modus operandi:

1. Age falsification: Many believe that aged dogs cannot reproduce, but contrary to this, they can reproduce throughout their life. This is evident in that a female dog will come in heat throughout its lifetime. As a result, sellers of adult dogs do reduce the age of the dogs. A recent case is that of a Lhasa Apso that the current owner believed was 6 years of age. He came across the previous owner after 2 years the dog has stayed with him. The age he picked the dog from the seller was fabricated to be 4 years. Suffice to say that when the dog was supposed to be 6 years, he now met the previous real owner. The previous real owner said that the dog spent 7 years with him before he gave the dog out to the person that sold her. That dog’s real age cannot be less than 9 years as at the time the current owner met the new owner. To cub this, a dog registry under the supervision of a kennel club will be necessary. Once a dog is duly registered in the registry, age falsification will be difficult.

2. Pedigree falsification: This is about selling a puppy or a dog with fake generational tree. Here, fake parentage is assigned to the animal. The unscrupulous seller will assign highly rated parents to a puppy from low quality parents in order to attract a higher monetary value. We have seen cases of newly imported dogs with pregnancy that littered 5 or less puppies and owners end up selling 10 puppies with the pedigree details. They added puppies from other litters to the puppies litter by the pregnant imported bitch to sell puppies at a premium value. To cub this, a kennel club is the best to handle litter registration. Some dog breeders also make you believe that the registration of a dog on a public registration site is authentic. It is good that some kennels issue birth and pedigree certificate, but that can contain false information. Registration under a kennel club will be subjected to DNA verification among others.

3. Breed Falsification: This is where a dog breeder or a middleman sell an impure breed of dog to unsuspecting buyer. The puppy may be a mix of terrier and Lhasa Apso, even a mixture of more than two breeds. Such puppies will look beautiful as a puppy and the true picture will come out when they start growing. There is no love that you have for dogs that will make your love for a dog you later discover to be impure remain intact. For example, if you feed premium dog food to the dog before the discovery, you will surely not continue with such expensive food. The pain of the deceit and the fact that you are not having the breed you love will affect you emotionally and the dog will be at the receiving end.

4. Tattoo: This is another means of animal identification which was highly in vogue before the advent of microchip. Dubious dog breeders or marketers use permanent marker to inscribe some alphanumeric or numeric data on the ear,belly or any other areas of the dog where hair does not grow. They claim the puppies or dogs are imported with tattoo.

5. Pay at the motor park or airport: The fake seller will take the puppy to a motor park after negotiation with you has been completed in the guise of sending the puppy or dog to you. This is just to con you into making payment. He will make a video call with you showing the driver of the transport company receiving the puppy. If it is airport, official in charge of cargoes will be shown receiving the dog. This method is applicable to local transportation of dogs. The scammer will now request that you make payment to him or her. The unsuspecting buyer at this point will not have any other choice than to make a transfer. After the fund hits his account, he will collect the dog back from the unsuspecting transport company’s official under the guise that you(buyer) have not paid or any other excuse to take back his puppy or dog. Perhaps they have their men at those parks!

6. Watermarked pictures: When you upload pictures without watermark to your social media accounts, these fraudsters  lift it from there and upload the pictures on their social media account as theirs to advertise puppies or dogs. They may use your pictures to sell low quality puppies. Most use the pictures to scam buyers outright, without having any puppy to even sell. This is suffice to say you will lose money and still you will not receive any puppy. The sad things is that there are software that are capable of removing watermark from any picture or video.

7. Juicy offer: This is sequel to the method where pictures are stolen to sell puppies as mentioned above. They usually attached ridiculously cheap prices to their advertisement. Greedy buyers are attracted to the adverts and they get swindled in the long run. They usually tell them to pay certain amount before delivery and balance when they receive the dog. They will never receive the dog because there are no dogs to be sent in the first place.

8. Pay on delivery: Here a buyer will tell you to deliver to his address. He may tell you that you will meet his brother at home and you should not discuss price with him. Once the supposed brother receives the dog, he will credit the account of the person that contacted you as the buyer. The ‘brother’ is an innocent buyer and the person that directs you to the address is the scammer. He tells the real buyer also that his brother or his kennel boy will make delivery to him. When the real buyer has transferred the fund to the scammer, he will block you and the real buyer.Both of you will have no means of communication with the scammer. The real buyer will tell you that he has paid for the puppy. There is no way you can get your puppy or money back. It will appear as if you want to scam the real buyer in conjunction with the real scammer.

 We will look into some of the ways scammers can be checkmated or decimated.  We have seen cases where a victim of scam will post the picture of the supposed scammer. Grow up, no scammer will use his real identity or picture to scam you. They use stolen pictures and identities to operate. Perhaps, they can be tracked down via the account the victims pay into. Victims of scams do not explore this option, hence scammers always have a field day. If the case is reported to the appropriate authority, the fund may be recovered. We should be careful if anyone wants to receive money through our bank account. The fund may originate from fraud,kidnapping or any other crime. The investigators will be on you in no time.

We can protect our names and brands from being tools in the hands of the scammers . Each dog breeder should register a business name showing his/her kennel name. This business name will have an account opened in that name. If anyone pays into another account that does not bear your business name, then there is no case, should the person get defrauded. It will be easier for you to sue such person for defamation of character, should he link your name to the scam because someone pretends to be you. It is only a foolish dog buyer that will accept to pay into an account other than that of the business he is dealing with.

In addition, the buyer should try to see the puppy or dog physically by visiting the kennel or run a background check on the seller to ascertain the authenticity of the seller before any cash exchanges hand. Dog breeders are now forming different groups and associations making it easy for you to know someone that knows someone who knows someone. Just involve a genuine person you know to help you in the verification of the seller.You may also ask a friend or relation living close to the place you want to get the puppy from do the check and complete the transaction for you.

Furthermore, there are some escrow services in certain areas that protect the buyer and the seller. Here, the buyer pays to a registered third party who will pay the seller once the buyer has confirmed and accepted the commodity delivered. There are different clauses in the agreement binding both parties(seller and buyer) to ensure the seller does not cheat the buyer and vice versa. This will facilitate a seamless transaction in any business.

Dog breeders and sellers should be very careful during transaction because the scammers are innovative and they change the mode of operation frequently. The scammers are not from the space. They are human beings like us. They live among us. Be ahead of the scammers.

©Euniversal Stars Kennels 2022