Good Lifestyle

With nicknames like "Man's best friend" and "Fur Baby", it is clear that weI love our dogs, especially here in the United States according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), almost 40% of Americans, or more than 48 million households,have a canine companion to run. Unfortunately, the crooks are always looking for new avenues to exploit, and now they take advantage of dog lovers. The authorities have just issued a new warning on a scam that could be too tempting to avoid. Read the rest to find out what you need to be looking for.

Read this then:If you see this at the grocery store, report it immediately, the police warn.

Scammers are always trying to find new ways to deceive people - and as the patterns are evolving over time, the authorities do their best to ring the alarm. In May, Connecticut and Northern Carolina police began to warn residents they had received from scammers using a usurpation technique forusurp the identity of police officers On telephone calls. Last month, an Indiana police service published an alertOn an identity deception scam involving consumers receiving packages for the orders they have never placed. And just this week, the county police of Fairfax, Virginia, revealed that the crooks began to target peopleThanks to fraudulent parking tickets on their cars.

But while fear is an emotion that is easy to exploit for the crooks, some crooks now seek to target Americans by shooting rather on their hearts.

Social media sites like Facebook are saturated with publications on fur friends who need to find their homes forever, but everything you see online can be true. The Wentzville police department of Missouri recently issued an alert on the crooks targeting dog lovers withThese types of messages. "We notice a little a slight increase, or a trend, in scams with deposits to reserve dogs", "Jacob Schmidt, a public information agent at the Wentzville police service, the local KSDK told the NBC on July 25, adding that the department had received three "shocking" reports in just 10 days.AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB

"We hear the sad stories again and again. The people who wanted to give a pet a loving house, then ended up with nothing,"Debbie Hill, who works with the Missouri Humane Society, told Ksdk.

RELATED:For more up-to-date information, register for our daily newsletter.

The Wentzville police department said that this type of program - which is often called puppy scam - uses Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. According to the Better Business Office (BBB), the puppy scams generally consist of someonepretend to be a dog seller Through false advertisements on social networks. The "seller" says that they demand that potential buyers send a repayable deposit to "hold" a particular puppy or make a payment so that the animal is shipped to their home.

This immediate request for money is in scams some people on $ 300 at $ 1,400 with one click on a button, according to Schmidt. "They transmit money from Cash App and Venmo, things like that, which are legitimate services, but they then come to discover that they were defrauded for them for this deposit," Schmidt told Ksdk.

Some crooks could even pretend to be real shelters. Pétersburg police in Virginia recently warned thatThe crooks posed Like the Petersburg Animal Care and Control via a Facebook page called "Helping the Petersburg Animals", reported on August 4. Not something that the Petersburg refuge really does.

There is of course a legitimate adoption or messages of sellers on social networks, it is therefore up to you to understand what is real and what is false. Fortunately, experts say that there are indicative signs of scams to know. According to the American Kennel Club (AKC),Red flags include sellers Who prefer to manage communication by email and not by phone, photos of the dog that can be found on several websites, summary payment requirements, prices that seem too good for a certain race and breeders claiming to have " badges ", like the AKC" does not distribute badges to breeders. "

"If you are going to buy at a breeder, you must go to this establishment, you must meet the person, you must see where the animals are high," warned Hill. "Work with someone who is famous. If you can't do that, say no."