Watch Out Lubbock! Do Not Fall For Cute Puppy Scams on Facebook

Almost everyone loves dogs but hardly anyone can resist puppies which is why some scammers are using that to their advantage. Recently (like within the last 2 hours) I was almost scammed out of some money trying to get my aunt a male Yorkie puppy but luckily I have great investigative instincts.

An old acquaintance of mine from high school recently posted that he was selling some Yorkie puppies on Facebook and I knew that one of my family members really wanted one. Well I jumped on this post since we technically grew up together and got some great quick responses back from him. The entire exchange was great until the talk of payment came up.

When payment came up I was told the puppies would be $300 and the puppies were said to be of pureblood, I personally prefer to adopt. This seemed fine to me since the dog was for someone else but then the talk of the dog having papers and being registered came up, this is where I became concerned. It wasn't until I was told to send a deposit via Zelle, Venmo, or CashApp but it wasn't until I asked about Facebook that I started to question the legitimacy of this offer. Of course I took into consideration that I knew this person but decided to reverse image search the pictures of the puppies and found those exact photos online.

I obviously knew this friend of mine but knew his wife a bit more so I reached out to her to ask if they were selling puppies. The truth came out and his profile had been hacked months prior but because the profile had been around since 2010 Facebook refused to acknowledge it was hacked. So I unfortunately had to break the news to my aunt and break her heart about there not being a male Yorkie puppy that she's been wanting for years. The scammer apparently waited for months after hacking the profile to attempt to get money from the established profiles friends and family to purchase the cute puppies.

I did get into contact with the Lubbock County Sheriff's Office and they did advise me that if anyone does actually send money to a scammer to make a report. The report is what the banks will need in order to issue you a refund on that sale so it's always important to write what those funds are going towards. Reports can be made by calling their non-emergency number at 806-775-1601 only if money has been sent to that person. I also blocked and reported that fake profile and will continue the search for a male Yorkie puppy for my aunt.