As I often see posts on the board from families searching for a new puppy, I thought I'd mention the latest scam that I've seen. This is a new one to me, and actually pretty tricky! I breed Great Danes, and have a website for my puppies. Yesterday I got an email from one of the puppy advertising sites, asking me to confirm my ad. I do have a current litter, but I had not advertised on this site. Customer service contacted me because apparently someone had used the link to my website and pictures, but used a different contact email address then the one listed on my site.
Apparently this is an increasingly common scheme where the scammers will place an ad linking to a legitimate website, yet use their own email address for the contact. The email they posted was very close to my actual email, but it was a yahoo address instead of Comcast. Fortunately, the advertising site cross checked my website with the email address, saw that they didn't match, and flagged the ad, but if they hadn't caught it then buyers could have very easily been scammed using my website, completely unbeknownst to me.
Just a word of warning to be very careful in your search, and apparently now you even have to check to make sure the contact info on a breeder's website matches the info you see in an ad. Usually I can spot a scam a mile away, but this one was pretty sneaky!
Apparently this is an increasingly common scheme where the scammers will place an ad linking to a legitimate website, yet use their own email address for the contact. The email they posted was very close to my actual email, but it was a yahoo address instead of Comcast. Fortunately, the advertising site cross checked my website with the email address, saw that they didn't match, and flagged the ad, but if they hadn't caught it then buyers could have very easily been scammed using my website, completely unbeknownst to me.
Just a word of warning to be very careful in your search, and apparently now you even have to check to make sure the contact info on a breeder's website matches the info you see in an ad. Usually I can spot a scam a mile away, but this one was pretty sneaky!
