In November of 2018, I purchased a puppy from an online "breeder" by the name of Basal Papillon Home. I paid for this puppy thru my bank to 2 different bank accounts. These were/are real banks with real account numbers. I sent a total of $650 for the puppy and shipping.. I then started getting e-mails saying I would need to pay for one of three amounts.
They roughly ranged from approximately $500 tom $1,500. This was supposed to be for the"use" of special crates to transport the puppy and it would be refunded when I turned the crate over to the person delivering the puppy.. All kinds of red flags started going off for several reasons.
#1 The payment for the crate could be made only to a Walmart or using Western Union..
#2 The number I was given to call about the puppies transportation had an answering machine with a recording saying "my friend was not available".
#3 every bit of information including e-mails began having many grammatical errors. I do realize that not everyone was born in the USA but this was bizarre.
#4 They kept saying things like they were hard workers and God fearing people and that I just needed to trust them. Not likely at this point.. I reported all this to my bank but they could not help me because I had voluntarily transferred the money.T
hey suggested that I report the information to the local police. I did not because it didn't seem to me that it could help. I did call both of the banks whose account numbers I was given to transfer the money into. I spoke to their individual Fraud departments. They would not advise me of their findings as I do not have an account with either bank.. I also reported it to a Government agency that is supposed to investigate but I never heard from them and on another website that reports scams.
At this point I really figured that my money was gone and there was no recourse. I moved on. Then I started looking again for a Papillon puppy and did a search for breeders online this June of 2019.. Imagine my surprise and shock to see a website for a breeder called Jigga Papillon Puppies and when I clicked on their site, all the pictures of all the puppies were exactly the same with the same names and ages as Basal Papillon Home..Amazing that the puppies hadn't aged since November of 2018.
They would be fully grown young dogs by now.. Unfortunately one of the ways to spot these particular scammers is that they frequently make a couple of mistakes with grammar and/or tenses and that kind of thing.. It is possible that there are legitimate breeders out there who were not A or B students in English class.
The only thing I can suggest to hopefully avoid these unscrupulous people is to ask lots of questions (tho' I did that}, ask for additional pictures (did that too) and be wary of any so called testimonials. Any and all of this information can apparently be stolen from legitimate breeders. I am willing to provide any additional information tho' I believe I covered all the pertinent data.