Man Trying To Buy Puppy For His Wife Falls Victim To Facebook Scam
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Bobby Walser thought it was fishy, but the romantic husband really wanted to pull through on a gift for his wife. Now he is turning to the Morning Insiders for help tracking down the present, and his money.
CBS 2's Lauren Victory is on the case.
When CBS 2 first messaged the "Puppies For Sale Near Me" Facebook page, they seemed genuine; almost caring. Then they stopped responding.
Walser's conversations went much differently.
He's out hundreds of dollars, because he and his wife haven't seen hide nor hair of the cute puppy he bought from the same Facebook page.
"My wife is sitting downstairs with several bags of dog food, and new bowls, and a new leash and collar, and no dog," Walser said.
Walser said he found the Facebook page after doing a Google search for puppies near him.
He bought his other dogs on the internet before.
"We've done the down deposit and driven to pick them up. However, with the COVID-19, we knew weren't going to go anywhere to pick up a dog," Walser said.
So he bit when the seller promised to deliver the puppy, even providing Walser a USPS tracking number after he sent a $300 down payment.
The problem is, the U.S. Postal Service told CBS 2 "warm-blooded animals are not shippable."
"Then upon asking a couple of times, they said, 'Oh, we need money for insurance for the dog also,'" Walser said.
Walser sent an Amazon gift card, admittedly going against his gut, because he was in a rush.
"It was my wife's, one of her bigger birthdays, and also our 25th anniversary," he said. "So I thought I would get the puppy, and jump through any hoops that were necessary."
We don't know what's sweeter, so it was time to get salty.
We'd matched the address listed on the shipping receipt to three other businesses. Someone from one of them called us back.
"We believe that your operation is a scam," Victory told them. "Every time we take a picture of one of the puppies on the Facebook page, it comes up as a fake picture."
When CBS 2 ran some of the pictures from the Facebook page through a reverse image search on Google, we found the same pictures on other sites, including Twitter and Pinterest.
The logistics guy said he doesn't have a Facebook page.
The conversation continued over text, with some choice words for us: "duck you and your miss guided info."
As for Walser, summer will be spent chasing down money, instead of a new pet.
"We were looking forward to that time to train a puppy," Walser said.
Walser has purchased a dog through the internet before. His advice this time? Make sure the seller has more than a few pictures of the animal, and beware of websites offering multiple breeds.
