Puppy Scams, Fake Retail Websites Top the List of Holiday Fraud Scams, Says BBB

The Holidays are upon us and the Better Business Bureau is warning of several scams, one involving puppies.

Every year, crooks and scammers try to take advantage of the holiday season by finding new ways to cheat you out of your money and your gifts.

This year, Better Business Bureau spokesperson Dottie Calina says beware of people selling pedigree puppies online.

“Being reported on our BBB Scam Tracker on a weekly basis are these fake puppy web sites,” she said. “The first thing is, if it’s a purebreed and they always are, they’re asking for a lot less money than what they would normally cost. The scammers usually use fake puppy photos they get from Google images.”

Once hooked, the victim will then be told there are problems shipping the puppy and will be asked to contribute more and more money until the buyer finally realizes they’ve been scammed.

Calina says the best way to adopt a puppy is to go to your local animal shelter or a local breeder where you can see the facilities and pick out a puppy.

The other big scam this Holiday season is fake retail Websites that look legit.  Calina says it’s a new scam called, “Malvertizing.”

“If you’re on social media a lot you’re going to see these ads that look like legitimate retailer sites. They’ll say, ‘click here.’ So you click on it and you think you’re going to a legitimate site when you’re actually going to a fake web site. If you go there and start putting in your personal and financial information and it’s not a legitimate retailer, you’re going to have all kinds of issues,” she said.

Calina said her office has also recently learned that some scammers have figured out how to duplicate the https security protocol on the real retailer’s URL, fooling victims into thinking the fake retail web site is secure when it isn’t.

And remember, if you think you’ve been a victim of a holiday scam, you should go to the Better Business Bureau Website at bbb.org/scamtracker and report it.