TULSA, Okla. — A Chicago woman looking for a new puppy to train as a service dog came across an online pet scam posing as a seller from Tulsa.
Online pet scams are a costly problem for consumers with some victims losing thousands of dollars. It's common practice schemers prey on the emotions of potential pet owners, luring them in with an animal that doesn't exist.
Kimberly Cortopassi of Chicago said she’s thankful she investigated the alleged breeder her fiancé was interested in doing business with.
"Everybody thinks their dog is the best, but Bob was by far the best dog,” Cortopassi said.
Bob was a 100 percent purebred Akita. He wasn't just a pet. He was a service dog for her fiancé, who is a disabled veteran.
“He went everywhere with us, “she said. “He went to concerts, he went to Bears games, he went to Hawks games, he went to the casino. We did not go anywhere without him."
When Bob died suddenly, Cortopassi’s fiancé was at a loss.
“It really put my fiancé in a bad place,” she said. “He did not realize how much support he gave him."
The couple then began looking for a new Akita puppy to fill Bob's big shoes.
“He went online and was like, I found these puppies, and he sent me the links,” Cortopassi said. “So that's when I started digging into it."
Cortopassi’s fiancé found a puppy named "Bear" at akitapuppiesforsale.com.
“It seemed somewhat legitimate,” she said, but something in the back of her mind said things didn’t add up.
The seller sent a bill of sale and emails to confirm the purchase. However, the person initiating the sale, who claimed to be doing business from a Tulsa address, was not the person who communicated with Cortopassi by phone.
The address listed never belonged to the person claiming to live there according to county assessor records.
"The more I dug into it, that's when I found your story, and I was like, wait a second,” Cortopassi said.
The story in reference is a 2 News Investigation from 2022.
A New Mexico couple drove to Tulsa to pick up their Akita puppy after paying a 50% deposit of $400 to the "alleged" breeder through the mobile banking app Zelle.
When they arrived, there was no puppy at the address, only a baffled homeowner who said many others had also come to claim Akita pups.
The scheme offered to Cortopassi showed similar discrepancies to the scam from 2022. Our team was able to connect the two because the breeder used the same phone number only under a different website.
2 News reported the most recent scam to the Better Business Bureau of Tulsa, which then added the phony business to the "not accredited" BBB list.
“This particular business is a scam,” Aime Mitchell, President and CEO of BBB Tulsa said. “We identified them when they were trying to scam people out of money for bull terrier puppies. It looks like they changed up the website. They've changed a few images."
An easy way to check if the dog is real is to right-click the image online and do a Google search. If it pops up on multiple websites, you know it's a scam.
There are other ways to avoid becoming a victim.
“Once you've found that pet online, you really, even if you are from out of state, you want to at least have a video of that particular dog,” Mitchell said. “I would recommend like a Facetime situation."
She also suggested looking for add-on expenses — like vaccinations or crate fees.
Our 2 News investigators did try reaching the so-called breeder by phone, but those phone calls went unanswered.
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