Page 13 - IAV Digital Magazine #561

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Saanich Woman Loses Thousands of Dollars To Puppy Scam
By Jeff Bell
Saanich police say a woman lost thousands of dol- lars over the course of two weeks when she tried to buy a puppy from an online site.
The case began when she
responded to an advertisement Dec. 4 on Facebook Marketplace list- ing a Maltese puppy for sale.
The “seller” told her they were from the United States and direct- ed her to a web- site that had dogs
for sale, but that has since been taken down.
The “seller” requested a money order from the woman. Once they received it, however, they asked for addi- tional funds for such things as shots, licensing
and registration, and warned the puppy’s welfare would be at risk if they didn’t receive more money.
The company doing the money transfers warned the woman she was likely involved with a fraudster, but
when she men- tioned that to the “seller”, they demanded that she send them prepaid Visa gift cards.
She was told to go a specific store and buy a particular type of card. They were in packages that had already been tampered with and contained fake cards with altered barcodes. When the 15 cards were loaded by the teller in the store, the money was sent directly to the scammer.
“These scammers often resort to threats to defraud their victims of as much of their money as possi- ble,” said Const. Markus Ansatasiades. “We have recently started to see these altered gift
cards being reported to police, which demon- strates the level at which these criminals will go to defraud the general public.”
Police recom- mend that anyone looking to buy a pet try to do it locally through a reputable dealer who can be seen in person before money is exchanged.
Any seller who issues threats is likely a fraudster, said police, who advised inspect- ing the barcodes of prepaid gift cards to deter- mine if they have been tampered with. In this case, the actual card was replaced with a blank card with a barcode sticker, police said.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine