Monday, July 27, 2015

Yorkie Dog Scams

Dog owners are warned to watch out for an online scam in which missing or stolen pets are 'flipped' and sold back through online classified adverts

A new scam is on the rise on Craiglist as owners of missing dogs are finding their beloved pets for sale on the classified ad site - and are then having to buy them back.

The practice, known as dog-flipping, either begins with a dog genuinely being lost or escaping from a yard, or worse being stolen from the owner.

Whoever ends up in possession of the dog then sells the pet for profit, usually through an online portal such as Craigslist.

A family from Houston, Texas, the Lowes, found themselves victims of such as scam when their 11-year-old Yorkshire terrier, Sushi, escaped from their yard in December 2014.

The same day the family received a strange phone call asking if they were missing a dog, ABC reported.

When the Lowes were unable to find Sushi, they redialed the number of the person who had called them, who then denied any knowledge of the dog.

A few weeks later, Kara Lowe, saw an advert on Craigslist offering a dog for sale that looked just like Sushi, but now named Sparkle.

Suspicious, Kara contacted the seller, but this initial confrontation failed and the trail went cold after the ad was removed from the site.

Seven long months went by and a second advert for the same dog appeared.

This time Kara pretended to be an interested buyer and a meeting with the seller was arranged last Friday in the parking lot of a Sam's Club in Cypress, Texas.

Kara brought along an animal rescuer friend, Kathy Vasquez, armed with a microchip reader, but at first they were unsure it was Sushi.

'I didn't think it was her,' Lowe told ABC. 'Her coat was a different color. She'd been dyed.'

The dog also didn't seem to know her, but Kara pressed on and the sale went through for $250.

'It was priceless,' she said. 'I figured even if it wasn't Sushi, it was somebody's dog that we could save and try to return.'

Her friend's microchip reader then confirmed that the dog was in fact Sushi. By that afternoon Sushi was back at home playing with the Lowe's children and other dogs

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