The worst part of the story I'm about to tell you is that even the things that give

us the most joy can be used to deceive us.

We love our dogs, but even that love can be used against us.

I first really started seeing this on a large scale during the pandemic.

We were forced to stay at home and a lot of us decided to get a pet.

But the surge in buyers led to a surge in scammers.

Sometimes people would order a dog online and it never showed up.

Or people would pay, in full, go to pick up their new puppy only to discover the dog was

never real.

People's money was just gone.

Your new Better Business Bureau report on pet scams shows complaints this year more than

doubled from last year.

Here's a question.

How scuzzy do you have to be to scam lonely people with puppies?

Pretty scuzzy, right?

But that scam ended up being just one of many.

Using somebody's love of puppies to defraud them didn't start when the world shut down.

We are used to worrying about preventing cruelty to animals.

But what we're talking about is different.

This is a scam.

One that seemed designed to keep pet owners from ever figuring out where their puppy came

from.

...