I got scammed out of $600 from a Facebook Group called Adopt A French Bulldog that was “selling” French Bulldog puppies. They said I was adopting the puppy but that was far from the truth. I should have known better than to buy a puppy I have never met and pay to ship it to me from a stranger I met online. It’s so obvious now.
I got scammed on buying a puppy off of Facebook.
Our family learned the hard way, we were thinking about adding a dog to our family. We had lost our Joey to old age about a year earlier and our hearts were ready and open to adding a new family member. Since Joey was a French Bulldog, we decided to get another.
We went on Facebook, and we found a Facebook Group named Adopt A French Bulldog. The group looked legitimate and had thousands of followers. We started to look at the puppies that were for sale within the group. We later learned that supposedly people are not supposed to sell puppies on Facebook, so they just say to direct message or to call or email directly.
We found a person who was selling and messaged him about the sweet little girl he was selling. She was 12 weeks old, and her price was $2,700. The scammer answered all our questions and told us she would be flown into Chicago O’Hare airport in 5 days.
He sent several pictures of her, and we were so excited. We had to put down a deposit of $600, so we sent the money. We had to send it via Walmart wire service. All was fine, but after we sent the money, they were asking for more money. They wanted money for transport and crates and vet fees.
They said we would get most of it refunded after we received our puppy. We started to get a bad feeling about the person we were dealing with. We contacted Stop Online Puppy Mills because we were now suspicious and wanted to know if we could have been scammed. Stop Online Puppy Mills assisted us in asking the seller more questions, we then asked to talk to the breeder in person, but we never heard from them again. Thankfully, we only lost $600, it could have been so much more.
That Facebook Group can no longer be found, they most likely renamed the group to a different breed or some other scam so they could not be found. Never buy a puppy from a picture and without meeting it in person. If you can’t meet the mother dog, don’t buy the puppy. We got scammed and never received a puppy.
If you would like to report a puppy scam please contact us.
We do not recommend buying a puppy from Facebook ever.
Facebook does not allow the sale of puppies on their website. Breeders wanting to make a quick buck or other high volume online puppy sellers willing to sell and ship their precious puppies online are not reputable. Many people end up loosing money to puppy scams where the money is lost and there is no way to track down the scammers.
We do not recommend buying a puppy online and it is not safe to buy any dog online. Breeders selling online and through websites that direct ship puppies by air, nanny or truck are most likely USDA licensed. The risks of getting a poorly bred puppy as well as supporting the inhumane treatment of its parents are high with USDA breeders. If you are not able to pick up the puppy in person, meet the mother dog and where she and all the breeder’s dogs live, you might be supporting a puppy mill.
Over 1 million puppy mill puppies are sold online each year and it is in your best interest to make sure your new puppy is not coming from one of these breeders. There is no excuse for a breeder that won’t let you see where the dogs live. Video chats, videos and photos do not take the place of seeing firsthand in person.
It is not easy to catch the puppy scammers selling fake puppies on Facebook and in Facebook Groups. These scammers use untraceable ways to communicate with their victims and accept quick pay methods for cash transfers that make it almost impossible to track them down. Many times after they scam is complete and they have your money, they change the name of the Facebook group to another breed of dog and vanish.
A puppy mill is any dog breeder that puts profit over the health and well-being of the breeding dogs and puppies produced. These breeders vary in size. Some could be small breeders with ten to twenty dogs and others can be very large breeders that have hundreds of breeding dogs. Puppy mills are legal, and some are licensed by the USDA.
To maximize profit, female dogs are kept pregnant, bred at every heat cycle to produce as many puppies as possible. The breeding dogs are usually kept in wire cages, many times stacked. The breeding dogs are not groomed, they are not given opportunity to exercise, nor do they know the touch of a loving hand. They are denied basic veterinary care, and most are living and breeding with painful conditions such as urinary tract infections, ear infections, rotten teeth, infected eyes, tumors, infected mammary glands, and sore feet from standing on wire cage floors — that never get addressed.
It is important to know that any breeder can be a puppy mill. It’s hard to imagine the breeder you are talking or texting with could be a puppy mill. If the breeder has excuses why they won’t let you see where they keep the breeding dogs or you are not able to meet the mother dog in person, we suggest you find another breeder. It is important to know that any breeder can be a puppy mill. It’s hard to imagine the breeder you are talking or texting with could be a puppy mill.
If the breeder has excuses why they won’t let you see where they keep the breeding dogs or you are not able to meet the mother dog in person, we suggest you find another breeder. Video chats, videos and photos do not replace seeing firsthand in person.