THIS IS OUR STORY

How Puppy Scam Awareness Australia came about.

 My name is Sandra, I am the founder of Puppy Scam Awareness Australia. 

This is my story.

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On 3 May 2020, I decided to look for a puppy for my mum, who is elderly and was isolated during the Covid 19 pandemic. 

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So I hit up all the local pounds and kennels in hopes of finding a small low maintenance dog for mum.
Much to my surprise, I found that all kennels all over NSW including the RSPA had run out of dogs to adopt out.
The only breeds left where large bully breeds, which were not suitable for her. 

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I am a former vet nurse and Wildlife Carer, I thought I knew all there was to know about the industry. How wrong was I!! 

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I then looked up various different classifieds, to look for a small dog. I found an Ad on Petlink.com for a toy poodle selling for $1600. I didn't think at the time, the price was cheap as Covid has just started.  The person was very convincing and sent me their Drivers Licence when I asked for ID. 

They told they would courier the pet straight to my door the following day. 

I then transferred the funds via direct deposit.  

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The following day, I was contacted by a fake transport company asking me for more money. I realized it was a scam when they asked me to pay for a Cabin Pressure vaccine at $500. As a vet nurse I knew that was a lie. 

I then demanded my money back and rang the bank to put a stop to my transaction. Unfortunately the bank were useless. They did a recall which is asking the criminal to kindly return my money!! Absolutely disgusting! 

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I reported this to various other agencies, like Scam Watch, Report Cyber, ACCC, and Crime Stoppers. 

To date, I have not been contacted by them to formally advise me of what happened. 

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When I took to social media, I found many others, had also been scammed the same way I was. I soon realised, there was no help or support for victims like me. There was no information on how to handle this type of crime. 

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I Met Marie on one of the dog sites, who helped me figure out how these scammers work. We then started helping each other to find other victims and research the sites. 
 

That’s when I decided to start the Puppy Scam Awareness Australia facebook group. 

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Marie and I started listing scammers and information on what to look out for.
We have reported hundreds of sites and have successfully shut them down. 
we have found victims of identity theft and intellectual property theft. 

Our group has now become a support group for victims of scammers as well as an information group where you can report a scam. We are now trying to work with Law enforcement and others to actively shut down these sites, and catch them.

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We are a unique live reporting organisation, tackling online puppy scamming as soon as they appear!

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We are committed and determined to stopping these scammers from taking advantage of vulnerable people during Covid 19. 

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Please helps us in the fight against crime and changing the way in which government cyber crime is reported in Australia.