Identifying and Avoiding Scams and Fraud

Online fraud is on the rise, so it is crucial to know what to look out for in order to avoid scams, protect your personal information, and ensure a safe and secure online experience. Our Puppies.com Customer Service team is doing everything possible to pinpoint and block scammers attempting to defraud our users by adapting to their ever-evolving strategies to sneak by undetected. Even with our fraud-detection protocols and regular surveillance, a few scammers are still able to access the site (usually not for long) and may come in contact with some of our users. As such, it is our goal to raise awareness of common internet scams in order to empower users to browse Puppies.com (as well as all other sites online) with a better understanding of common types of fraud on the internet. 

What to watch out for:

• Phishing scams often involve emails which appear to be sent from Puppies.com, but are actually sent by an internet scammer. The email will instruct you to either reply with your login information (including password, etc) or to go to a different website they link to and enter your login information. This website will often be designed to look like our site, but if you check the URL (the website address at the top of the page), it will actually be a different website created by the scammer. They use this method to collect your login information and then gain access to your account and/or to test your login information with other accounts to gain access (such as emails, bank accounts, etc). This is why it is important to always check the URL of the page you have accessed, and to never reuse passwords for multiple accounts online.
• Overpayment scams often involve a buyer who attempts to "overpay" for a dog (i.e. send a payment in excess of the listed price) using a stolen credit card, check, or money order. The buyer will then contact you to arrange a means through which you can return the excess payment through a third account unrelated to the original purchase (or they request to send the extra payment to their "shipping agent" who will be picking up the puppy). Once the fraudulent payment bounces, your bank will often deduct the full payment amount from your account, leading to your loss of the "overpayment" amount which was sent to the third account or fictitious "shipping agent."
• “Six-digit code” scams often involve a text message from someone asking you to reply with a six-digit code that they sent you in order to "verify" your phone number. The goal of this type of scam is to request a verification code in order to access texts and calls sent to your personal phone number. You can read more about this type of scam here.

These "six-digit code" scams often look like this:

• Customer Service scams often involve an email or phone call from someone posing as a representative of Puppies.com asking for your password or full credit card information. Please know that our Customer Service Representatives will never ask for your full credit card information or your account password (as they are prohibited from doing so due to privacy concerns). At times, to assist members with current or past charges, we will ask for the last four digits of the card number, the date of the charge, the last name on the card and possibly the expiration date (depending on the situation) in order to locate accounts and/or confirm ownership of a specific account. We do not accept payment over the phone and never ask for the credit card security code (CVV). As such, if a “Customer Service Agent” requests your full credit card information and/or your password, you are actually corresponding with a scammer.

If you are suspicious about the legitimacy of an email/phone call which claims to be from a Puppies.com representative:

• When replying to email, make sure the reply-to address ends with "@puppies.com". Scammers can change their "Display address" so that it appears that we are emailing you, but when you hit the reply button, the email address changes to a completely different address (usually ending in yahoo.com, hotmail.com or gmail.com).
• If you suspect that a scammer emailed or called you asking for your sensitive information please contact us at scamalert@puppies.com with all the contact information and correspondence you can collect.

If you are suspicious of a user of the site who appears to be fraudulent:

• If you feel a buyer may actually be a scammer, please email all buyer information and email correspondence to scamalert@puppies.com. We can research the account and remove scam accounts so that others will not be affected. Collect all your correspondence (e.g.; email, letters, payment) to give to your local authorities. You can also report them to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov).
• If you feel that you received a fraudulent message through the Puppies.com Message Center, please click the red REPORT button at the bottom of the message in order to bring it to our attention for review. 
• If you feel that you have located a fraudulent listing on the site, please click the red REPORT button at the bottom of the listing in order to bring it to our attention for review. 

Finally, if you are a buyer using the site to look for a dog to purchase, please review our Buyer Tips page if you haven’t done so already. It provides several things to look out for when purchasing a puppy online to ensure your safety (as well as the safety of the puppy). If you have any questions, please contact us at support@puppies.com, and we will be happy to help!