“Meet Me Outside the Trafford Centre”
Recently on Facebook a poster reported being scammed by a puppy seller when following up an ad on Pets4Homes. The way the scam operated was like this:
A puppy is advertised at a ridiculously cheap price – in this case £220 for a Black Labrador. On phoning the mobile number the prospective buyer is told that the seller is working on a nearby farm with horses, but the owner will let her go and collect the puppy and meet the buyer at a lay-by close to the Trafford Centre. She gives her home postcode as MK41 9EK – there is no such postcode.
The buyer paid for the puppy and took him home. Within 6 hours the puppy was dead from parvovirus, a very serious disease and generally fatal in puppies. A couple of days later the buyer enquired on the Pets4Homes website about a Siberian Husky puppy and spoke to the same person with the same story. Obviously this contact wasn’t followed up.
This “breeder” was obviously a dealer, buying in puppies or litters from puppy farmers for re-sale, passing them off as their own breeding. They had likely been illegally exported from Ireland or bred (legally or illegally) in Wales, where the majority of the puppy farms in the UK are based.
It bears saying once again that these basic guidelines should always be followed:
- Puppies should always be seen with their mother and siblings
- Puppies should never be collected at a midway point like a motorway services or lay-by
- Puppy farming and dealing is extremely lucrative and people involved will be very, very inventive with their lies and highly plausible
- Responsible Breeders will insist on meeting you before selling you a puppy, and probably more than once
People involved in puppy farming and dealing have no more regard for the puppies in their care than a can of tomatoes – they are simply a highly profitable product. Have a look at the shopping list of puppies from this puppy farm - http://www.puppyfinder.org.uk/puppy-farm-product-list/ - no pedigree puppies just sought after designer breeds.
Whenever a puppy is bought without observing the guidelines it is fuelling the trade in puppy misery, not to mention the horrific conditions that the breeding dogs live under, never seeing daylight or feeling grass beneath their feet. It is a cruel trade which must be stamped out by buyers refusing to buy from these traders.