A warning to others after Cathedral City man falls victim to online pet adoption scam

CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. (KESQ) – A report released last month showed Californians lost $3.54 billion to cybercrime in the form of scams, fraud, and ransomware. 

While it's easy to brush off this data and think you'd never fall victim to an online scam, one Cathedral City man, Bill Lewis, learned his lesson the hard way.

Just a couple of months ago, Lewis lost his pug, Betty Boop. He had adopted her two years ago when she was 11 years old.

With his precious pug gone, Lewis says he wasn't quite ready for another. But when he was tagged under a post in a Facebook group he's been a part of for several years, he reconsidered. Lewis says an administrator of the group, called "Pugs Up for Adoption," was looking for someone to adopt a pug, named Leo, whose owner had recently died.

"When I saw that that post on Facebook and the guy gave me the story, you know, a dog that lost his owner and I lost my Betty Boop, it felt like it was a match," Lewis recounts.

Lewis reached out to the seller, but recalls that when he talked it over with his husband, they made the decision to hold off on adopting the pup. But the seller begged him to reconsider, writing in messages, "I really thought your husband would be on board with the adoption" and "Really sad for Leo." Feeling the pressure, Lewis agreed to move forward with the adoption.

The seller asked for $600 – $350 for the pug, and $250 for transportation. Lewis says he thought it was a reasonable price, explaining, "I didn't know anything about this adoption. I've never done anything like this before. But it was on Facebook. I thought it was legitimate."

"I was really, really excited. So I had Zelled him some money and he said, 'All right, that's great. Send in the confirmation screenshot.' And he said, 'Now we can discuss a delivery.'"

Everything was going smoothly up to this point. But when the day of the delivery came, something was off. Lewis received messages from the shipping company, which told him he had to pay $1,000 to purchase an air-conditioned crate to transport the pug. Alternatively, they said he could rent one for $800 and $750 would be refunded to him after he received the pug.

Lewis reached out to the seller and told him of the additional, unexpected charge. Eventually, he convinced Lewis to pay a lesser amount – $300 – but after that payment went through, Lewis knew he'd done something wrong.

After the charge, he kept digging – and made a startling discovery.

"There was no breeder's license associated with his name, so I knew at that point he was. It was fraud," he explains. He began asking other administrators in the Facebook group and several other Facebook accounts that gave glowing reviews of the seller.

But as he asked these questions, he began to notice a pattern. Some accounts would send identical messages, while others would reference details that he told different accounts. He believes that the accounts were being run by the same person.

Cybersecurity experts, like Matt Disher, the President of Southwest Networks, a cybersecurity company based in Palm Desert, say there are things consumers should look out for if they're purchasing online.

"You can check on the Facebook profile of the seller if it seems fairly new, doesn't have a lot of posts, doesn't have a lot of activity, that's a telltale sign that it's a scammer that just set up something to do stuff like this," Disher says.

In Lewis's case, the accounts that were being used did not have much activity, as Disher explains.

Disher also says that the sale of stolen pets is a growing business – and a growing problem. He advises that those purchasing pets online pay close attention to paperwork and microchipping.

"When something looks too good to be true, just just slow down a little bit when you're doing those transactions and really think through what's going on and then how you're going to proceed to the next step."

Lewis has not yet been able to recover his money. He says he has filed a claim with his bank, but isn't optimistic about getting his $900 back.

Although he is embarrassed that he fell for this scam, he hopes his ordeal can keep others from making the same mistakes he made. "This is my this is my mistake. This is my mess. And I don't like being a victim," he says.