[00:00:00] Beau: It started like a lot of online purchases do: a cute photo, a friendly message, and a sense of urgency.

[00:00:05] Kristen: I was like, “Well, it’s starting to feel like you’re just trying to get money outta me now.”

[00:00:10] Beau: But this wasn’t concert tickets or a Craigslist couch. This was a living, breathing puppy.

[00:00:16] Kristen: I want the dog. Send me the dog. And she was like, “Don’t insult me like that. What do you mean?”

[00:00:23] Beau: Kristen thought she was adopting a new best friend. What she got instead was a digital maze of emotional manipulation, wire transfers, and ghosted promises.

[00:00:32] Kristen: I felt like I was getting screwed out of the money.

[00:00:35] Beau: I’m Beau Friedlander, and this is What the Hack, the show that asks, in a world where your data is everywhere, how do you stay safe online?

[00:00:42] Kristen: It really sucks because I don’t trust a lot of people anymore.

[00:00:50] Beau: Kristen, how are you?

[00:00:53] Kristen: Good, thanks.

[00:00:53] Beau: It’s been what, eighth grade now. How long ago? We’re not gonna say how long ago eighth grade was. That is how we know each other. I remember exactly where you used to get off the bus. And then we kind of lost touch. What have you been up to?

[00:01:08] Kristen: Well, let’s see. I got a degree in animal science ’cause I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian. Just decided that until the animals could drive themselves to my office on their own, I couldn’t do that job because I didn’t like people.

[00:01:30] Beau: Oh, well your honesty is disarming. And where are you now?

[00:01:34] Kristen: Now I am in south Florida. My husband got a job down here and we decided to go for it and we came down about 10 years ago.

[00:01:42] Beau: So you’ve left us Yankees up here to be Yankees.

[00:01:45] Kristen: Yep.

[00:01:47] Beau: I am in Redding right now where we grew up.

[00:01:51] Kristen: I remember you, you did get in trouble a lot because you talked all the time.

[00:01:59] Beau: Me?

[00:02:00] Kristen: Yes. Imagine that. So out of character.

[00:02:03] Beau: Well, the funny thing is I make a living talking now.

[00:02:07] Kristen: You always had something to say, and I’ll give you that. It was usually on topic and interesting, but you didn’t like to wait your turn.

[00:02:18] Beau: Oh gosh. Nothing’s changed. I’m actually blushing and my whole face is hot. Okay. We are here today because something happened that sucked. And it’s something that we’ve talked about on this show before. You may remember, if you listen to the show for a while, that we have covered dog scams in the past. And they are really particularly cruel because they play on our better angels, right? We wanna take care of pets. We love pets. They are often a lot better than human beings to hang out with. Were you looking for a specific kind of dog?

[00:02:50] Kristen: I was. At the time I had a four-year-old Jack Russell, and I wanted to find a little sister Jack Russell for him.

[00:03:02] Beau: Okay, Jack Russells. Now, are you a horse person because those are stable dogs, aren’t they?

[00:03:07] Kristen: Yes. That’s how I ended up with Corgis and Jack Russells from being at the barn and just throughout my life. The first thing I did when I graduated from college was get a Corgi, ’cause I had decided that’s what I had to have.

[00:03:19] Beau: All right. So you wanted a Jack Russell, and I actually know a little something about this ’cause my mother bred Jack Russells when I was a kid. Why’d you want a Jack Russell?

[00:03:30] Kristen: Well, it’s an odd evolution of how I got the dogs. ’cause I started with the Corgi and she had puppies. So then I had mom and one of the puppies. And when the mom passed away, I wanted the male puppy that we had kept to have a friend, but I couldn’t bring myself to get another female corgi ’cause she was just like my ride or die. We did everything together and I found a female Jack Russell. And she turned out to be a fabulous dog. I loved her to death. So then I had one of each, and then my son wanted a kitten, so we got him a Corgi.

[00:04:10] Beau: As one does.

[00:04:12] Kristen: Because we didn’t want a cat. So he got a Corgi. And so then we had the Jack Russell, like the old Jack Russell, young Corgi. And then the Jack Russell was… well she had a quinceañera because you know, it’s South Florida and everybody in Florida has a quinceañera, but she was like 16 and I figured she was on her way out. So I got the Jack Russell puppy that I have now, and he’s seven.

[00:04:37] Beau: Got you. Now the Jack Russell that you have now is not the Jack Russell that you thought you were buying, which was the reason we’re here today.

[00:04:45] Kristen: No.

[00:04:45] Beau: So you’re looking for Jack Russell, and how long ago was this?

[00:04:48] Kristen: Um, it was ’22.

[00:04:53] Beau: Okay.

[00:04:53] Kristen: So three years ago.

[00:04:54] Beau: Right. And that matters because this was after COVID and when commerce was a little complicated, there were complicating factors to getting things done.

[00:05:04] Kristen: Yes.

[00:05:04] Beau: All right, so you bought this dog. What does a dog like this cost, if you were to just go to a… do they sell them at puppy stores?

[00:05:09] Kristen: Yes, there are a bunch of places where you can get a puppy around here and depending on, you know, whatever factors they deem important, it could run you maybe $2,500 to $3,500.

[00:05:27] Beau: Yeah. Okay. Let’s call it $3,500, just to, you know, worst case scenario. So $3,500 bucks. It’s a lot. Um, did you go to those stores or how did you go about trying? ’cause those dogs are sometimes from puppy mills or you wanna find a breeder. How did you go about looking for a dog?

[00:05:39] Kristen: Well, I started with my horsey friends because they’re the ones that have the dogs, breed the dogs, you know, know who’s got what going on. Nobody had any upcoming litters. If anybody had a litter, all the girls were already spoken for, and I was looking for a girl specifically to be a friend with the boy that I have. So I went through those friends, didn’t find anything. Then I started looking for breeders online because I felt like I was doing the right thing, contacting a breeder rather than someone who gave up a puppy to a store.

[00:06:21] Beau: Yeah. Okay. So, and these breeders, as I understand it, I’ve done this a couple times. I became obsessed with a few breeds and was looking around at them and they were all over the place. I mean, they were in Montana, they were in Utah. There was someone in North Carolina. There wasn’t anyone in Connecticut. Was it the same for Jack Russells?

[00:06:40] Kristen: Um, there are pockets where, like in the South they’re very popular. So there were a lot in like Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, kind of that hunting area. Um, the one that I came upon that was timing right, you know, that they were actually paws on the ground available now was a litter out in California.

[00:07:06] Beau: Okay. And when you say paws on the ground, ready now, this was a breeder who said you can get this puppy more or less right away.

[00:07:14] Kristen: Right away. They said they were eight weeks old. They were weaned, they were eating food, they’d had their first round of shots, they were ready to go.

[00:07:21] Beau: Okay. That sounds like breeder talk. Like all the legit stuff you would expect to hear. How much did the dog cost?

[00:07:23] Kristen: Well, I think it was around a thousand dollars.

[00:07:26] Beau: Huh?

[00:07:28] Kristen: Yeah. So it was much less than one of the ones at a store.

[00:07:34] Beau: Yeah.

[00:07:35] Kristen: But, ’cause it was farther away, I was thinking ’cause it wasn’t in like, you know, LA, it was the sticks of California.

[00:07:46] Beau: And so that’s a very good price. How did you decide that this was gonna be the dog and these breeders were legit?

[00:07:54] Kristen: They had a website. I looked through the website. It had links to other breeders, things that made it look legit. They had pictures of their children playing with the puppies, showing how they’re raised in the home and they’re well socialized. They threw in some Bible verses, you know, made me think they were good people. It was a very wholesome family picture that they painted for me.

[00:08:23] Beau: So you’re starting to negotiate for the dog. They have a female that is ready to go. Do you just send them the thousand dollars or what do you do now?

[00:08:34] Kristen: Well, first contact was through email. I asked some questions, said I was interested. Um, but I had questions and I said I would like to speak to the woman that I was emailing. Said, “I’d like to talk to you.”

[00:08:48] Beau: In person. Okay.

[00:08:49] Kristen: Yes. And I asked very specific questions about like the shots they had gotten and what they were eating and things that weren’t, you know, not trick questions, but things that were normal conversational, like, you know, I asked if they were crate trained or if she was potty training outside and like, just dog people conversation, you know?

[00:09:13] Beau: Passed with flying colors. It was fine.

[00:09:15] Kristen: Yeah. Seemed like a legit deal.

[00:09:17] Beau: So what happened next?

[00:09:19] Kristen: Um, after I spoke with her on the phone, I said, “Okay, I think we’re gonna go forward and do this.” And she said, “Okay, you can Zelle me the money for the puppy, and when I get the money for the puppy, I’ll send you the information about the shipping company.”

[00:09:38] Beau: Okay.

[00:09:40] Kristen: Again, I know that you’re far away. I’m not gonna drive to California and pick up the puppy. Right. You’re gonna ship it. So I do the, you know, send a little bit of money, make sure it really gets to her and I entered all the information correctly.

[00:09:59] Beau: Yep.

[00:10:00] Kristen: She says that that money was received. I sent her the rest of the money for the puppy, and she’s like, “Okay, great.” Sent me a website link for the shippers that she uses, and then I began dealing directly with them.

[00:10:21] Beau: Okay. So you’re now in touch with the shipping company, Kristen. And you’re excited, I guess, right? You’re about to get this dog. Uh, how’s it go with the shipping company?

[00:10:31] Kristen: Everything seemed good. I went through the website again, you know, it looked like a real live website. Had places to enter, you know, track your shipment kind of thing, and contacts and who was where. And I spoke to someone on the phone and he told me that it was gonna be, I think, $1,500 to ship. They were gonna fly the dog from California to Fort Lauderdale and someone like a last-mile person was gonna pick it up at the airport and deliver it right to my door. I worked in a pet store when I was in high school and like I remember dogs would come in in the little kennel cabs, you know, and that’s how they ship ’em on the plane and we used to get them at LaGuardia. They would come into New York and they have a really nice animal receiving area that’s temperature controlled. And it has its whole own deal.

[00:11:31] Beau: It was like the doggy section of the plane.

[00:11:34] Kristen: Exactly. So it happens all the time.

[00:11:40] Beau: Gotcha. So I was just, that’s just, you learn something new every day. So we’ve got a $1,500 charge for sending this dog, and I guess it’s a special crate or something, you know?

[00:11:51] Kristen: Originally he told me the $1,500 and I was like, “Okay.” Sent him the money for that.

[00:11:55] Beau: Now did you do the same thing where he sent a little bit of money and then he said, “Yeah.” So you actually were being careful about a scam in that regard, and so you did that.

[00:12:03] Kristen: So then he came back to me and said, “Oh, well this puppy’s going from California to Florida. It’s August, like, you’re gonna have to get an air-conditioned crate.”

[00:12:12] Beau: That makes sense.

[00:12:14] Kristen: Yeah. And he said, “We have them, but that’s an additional $800 refundable deposit because they will send the crate back to us. You’re not buying the crate.”

[00:12:25] Beau: Okay, so now we’re up to, we’re close to the price of a dog in Miami now, but you have a dog with the right temperament and a breeder who seems like they know what they’re doing. Now you’re, you know, Jack Russells are rattlers. You like Jack Russells, you hang out with them a lot, you take on some of their features. Did you smell a rat?

[00:12:51] Kristen: You know, I did get suspicious because the people that I was dealing with, like some of the communication…

[00:13:01] Beau: Wait, you say people.

[00:13:04] Kristen: I spoke to multiple people at the shipping company. They had strong accents. My first thought was, “Oh, that’s why the emails are written so poorly. English not our first language.” So at first it made me feel better almost ’cause I was like, “Oh, you know, like these are the guys who are working at the shipping company.” But then one of them was really nasty. If you’re trying to get all my money, you should be nice to me.

[00:13:29] Beau: You should at least give me a hug or something. So the guy’s being rude, and you are starting to get a vibe though.

[00:13:37] Kristen: I was getting upset. I went back to the woman and I asked her, I was like, “Is this normal? You know, you say you use these guys all the time. Like you told me it would be like another thousand dollars. Now it’s over $2,000 for the shipping. Are you getting a piece of that?” And she was like, “Don’t insult me like that. What do you mean? Am I getting a piece of that?” I was like, “Well, it’s starting to feel like you’re just trying to get money outta me now. Like, I want the dog. Send me the dog.” So I felt like I was getting screwed out of the money, but I was still gonna end up with a dog.

[00:14:16] Beau: Okay, so it’s gotten more expensive, but you don’t think there’s a problem with actually getting the dog.

[00:14:20] Kristen: Yes. I sent the last money for the air-conditioned crate so she could arrive in luxury. And because I was upset with all of them now, because she gave me attitude and then the guy at shipping gave me attitude. He’s like, “Why are you asking all these questions?” I’m like, “’cause I wanna know what’s going on.”

[00:14:43] Beau: Uh huh.

[00:14:45] Kristen: I said, “You know, do you have a flight number?” He’s like, “You’ll get your dog. You’ll get your dog. Don’t worry about it.” So on the last thing that I sent them, in the notes I wrote that it was “puppy ransom” and it was “extortion” so I would have some record down the road of like, “Okay, this is where I realized something was wrong.”

[00:15:13] Beau: And you also, did you have the thought that maybe if you made a note, maybe you could retroactively claw some of that money back?

[00:15:18] Kristen: Yeah. ’cause you would think like, God forbid, what if it was a child and I had to Zelle money for ransom? Like, don’t you think the bank would help me get that ransom money back?

[00:15:31] Beau: You would think they do. But you know, when we were talking the other day you told me you think that you are the reason Zelle has that big warning up front now.

[00:15:41] Kristen: Sadly, yes. Because shortly after it happened, it actually said, “Beware of puppy scam.” And I was like, “Yes!” It was like when you tried to send money, it would tell you about the latest scam. And I was like, “Now you’re just being mean. You’re making fun of me.”

[00:15:57] Beau: All right, so now, I want real-time reporting here. I guess you were sitting, waiting for your dog to be delivered.

[00:16:07] Kristen: No, because for that price, she was going to be delivered to my door. So I don’t have to go to the airport. First I called the lady. I asked her to send me a picture of the puppy once she’s in the crate.

[00:16:22] Beau: Yep.

[00:16:24] Kristen: And she says, “Okay,” sends me a picture. It’s not an air-conditioned crate. You can’t see the dog that’s in the crate. And kind of in the background, I can see a guy in a DHL vest and I was like, “Why is she in the DHL hub?”

[00:16:46] Beau: So are you thinking you were looking at a stock photo?

[00:16:49] Kristen: I think it was a stock photo from somewhere.

[00:16:52] Beau: A DHL ad or something?

[00:16:54] Kristen: Yeah. So I call her and I’m like. “What’s going on? Like, I can’t see the puppy in the crate. That’s not the crate that I just gave an extra $800 for her to ride in.” And she was like, “Oh, no, no, that was my crate. She went to the airport in my crate and they put her in the big crate right before she goes on the plane.” And I was like, “Okay, do you have the flight number?” She’s like, “Oh, I didn’t get it.”

[00:17:22] Beau: Uh…

[00:17:22] Kristen: And I was like, “All right.” So I call the guys to get the flight number for the flight that’s bringing the dog to Florida. Their phones now are out of service. So I freak out.

[00:17:34] Beau: Yeah.

[00:17:35] Kristen: ‘Cause I think at this point, maybe they’re the scam, but she’s still real. And in the like 10 minutes from speaking to her about the crate to calling her back, her phone was out of service.

[00:17:50] Beau: It was a very slow smash and grab. Hmm. Okay. Are you thinking the dog might still show up or you’re done? You’re like, “Okay, I got…”

[00:17:59] Kristen: No, at this point, I’m like, “There is no dog.” And I told my son, and he was like, “Oh, no way.” So then he went on the site and tried to contact the lady and she told him that the puppy that I thought I was gonna get was no longer available. And I thought that was weird. And then I was like, “Oh, but we have the same last name. She probably figured the timing would make sense that someone else would check in with her.” So then he had another friend do it, so it would be a different name altogether and ask about another puppy. And he got the same… like, she sent him an email and I was like, “Just print it out.” And she said, “If you’d like to call, I can give you more details on the phone.” So she was ready and it was a new phone number. I don’t know if she’s got a stack of burners next to her Bible, but she had a new phone number and she was ready to go.

[00:18:52] Beau: Please tell me you called Zelle and said, “Gimme my money back.”

[00:18:57] Kristen: I called them and reported it as a fraudulent transaction.

[00:19:03] Beau: What’d they say?

[00:19:05] Kristen: They said, “You pushed the button, we can’t help you. You said you wanted to send that person money, so we sent that person money. That money is gone.”

[00:19:20] Beau: And that’s why there are all those warnings up front now. It’s ’cause of you, Kristen. No, it’s all your fault. But it’s so common. And the other thing that’s really common is these people get away with it and they set up shop again. They never get caught. And I imagine that’s the case for you too.

[00:19:38] Kristen: Oh, yep. I’m sure they changed the kennel name, changed the shipping company name, and they’re probably still doing it now. Well, they did get caught. I did file a police report, trying to have some sort of recourse. The detective that I worked with was really nice, really smart, good guy. Said that now police departments are investing a lot more money in helping people with cybercrime because it is so common now. And he said, you know, “They weren’t in Florida. I don’t even know if they were really in California.” But because this is now like a national database of crime, because anybody with a telephone and a computer can do it to anybody else anywhere. So he was great and I talked to him. I had everything. I had screenshots of my texts. I printed out emails. I had the screenshots of the Zelle transactions. I had my call log. I had a lot of stuff and I brought it and I was like, “Here you go. What can you do?” And he eventually called me back and said that they had been found in Michigan and it was due to some of my… I don’t know, he found IP addresses and cell phone records and things with other cases around. And then I ended up talking to a detective from up there and they said that they were happy that I had filed the police report because even though the amount of money that I lost was painful, they had done it to so many people that when you add up all those little thefts, they were tried for a more serious felony because of the amount of money that they had actually gotten out of people.

[00:21:36] Beau: And you gotta figure, this might have just been one scam of many they were running at the same time.

[00:21:43] Kristen: Yeah. She could have been selling exotic pets or who knows, you know?

[00:21:48] Beau: So, you know, is the only way to move forward from here just not to trust anyone anymore? I mean, you know, how do you shop online? What do you do?

[00:21:58] Kristen: It really sucks because I don’t trust a lot of people anymore. And going back to the sweet little town we grew up in, do you ever remember having to like have written estimates and contracts? Some guy came to your house and said, “Yeah, I’ll tile the bathroom.” Your parents said, “Okay, great.” And he would come and tile the bathroom and then he would say how much it costs and that’s what your parents would pay. And it was never like a big… like people did what they said they were gonna do.

[00:22:36] Beau: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:37] Kristen: Didn’t have to think like that.

[00:22:40] Beau: No.

[00:22:40] Kristen: And now I do all the time and I don’t like it.

[00:22:43] Beau: I don’t like it either. Is there like a trusted pet adoption website? Like how can you tell if a site is legit or a scam?

[00:22:51] Kristen: Not exactly, but there are sites where you can go find available dogs and it’s sortable by like breed and area, and it hooks you up with breeders.

[00:23:05] Beau: Is it something more organized than Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist?

[00:23:08] Kristen: Yeah.

[00:23:09] Beau: But even the real sites, they’re still all user-submitted pets, right? So the real places could be filled with fake people and puppies.

[00:23:17] Kristen: Yeah. I mean, I’m really blonde and super hot. I’m just using this AI so that people don’t recognize me on the street from my podcast fame.

[00:23:28] Beau: Yeah. I mean, that’s a fake background. I never read a book ever in my whole life. I mean, there’s, that’s the thing is we live in a rubber reality and there’s, you can be careful and you can be smart, and you are both of those things and you still got got. And that to me is the real lesson here.

[00:23:51] Kristen: It is because I like to think I’m a reasonably intelligent person, and sadly I had money, so that wasn’t enough of a turnoff for me. Like I didn’t get to the point where they asked for money and I said, “Well, I don’t have any more money.”

[00:24:16] Beau: But that’s why this scam is so smart, because they’re not trying to break the bank. They’re just trying to make a lot of little hits everywhere. But I just wanna go back to that thing like, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, it doesn’t matter how careful you are. You knew your game. I don’t think you had a chance.

[00:24:35] Kristen: Yeah, it really stinks. And you know what my mother said? And it’s true. She’s like, “You are a grownup and look how upset you are. Can you imagine they did that to someone who had a little kid who thought that puppy was coming?” Like, that’s really awful.

[00:24:54] Beau: If you’ve listened to this show for a while, you know, I rescue animals and that’s gonna be my first piece of advice. If you’re gonna buy a dog, go to the shelter first and see what’s available, because you might find a wonderful dog or cat that’s looking for a home. But if you need a very specific animal, like a Jack Russell to keep the rats and mice out of your horse barn, then I get it. Now, let’s say you’ve decided you’re gonna buy a dog. What are some tips you can take with you to try and stay as safe as possible? Always meet the pet in person. First of all, it may be an absolute maniac of an animal. Good idea. Meet the pet in person. Be very wary of too-good-to-be-true prices or rare breeds at steep discounts that are available right away, because there’s generally a huge waitlist for those kind of animals. Never pay with gift cards, wire transfers or apps like Zelle or Venmo or Cash App or Chime. Do a reverse image search on pet photos to check if they’re stolen from other sites. As a matter of fact, grab all the photos that they send you or you see on the website and search for those images and see if they pop up again, ’cause they might. Finally, don’t assume you’re invisible online. Scammers may gather personal information to tailor their pitch to you. And the only way you’re gonna know that is after the fact when you’ve been got. So all these things can help you stay safe, but it still could happen that you get got. And when you do, give us a call ’cause we want to hear your story, because you’ll help someone else not fall for the same thing in the future.