How to spot a Scam
..... aka Pet Scammer Red Flags 101
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If you’ve read this website before, or visited our social media, or joined any major Devon groups on Facebook, you will have seen us and others talk about how to spot a good breeder, an ethical responsible breeder who is breeding to better the breed, versus an irresponsible breeder, a backyard breeder, or a kitten mill(sometimes all three!).
However, scams are a whole other ball of wax. This is a crash course on how to spot a scam. This is written primarily for cats/kittens but these scams occur just as readily (and with the same red flags) for dogs/puppies.
1. Buy Now – Reserve Now payment buttons:
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2. Incorrect Breed Descriptions:
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3. Poor General grammar:
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4. No pictures of parent cats or pedigrees or the cats' registered names:
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5. You can't find reviews of them anywhere online(aside from their own website):
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6. They want to call or contact you on WhatsApp OR Have you pay through an untraceable method:
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7. They are offering kittens at a way lower price than you have seen anywhere else:
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8. Strange circumstances leading to providing a top quality purebred kitten for free or almost free:
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9. They want money down before showing you more pictures, or a video, or anything else:
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What you can do to make sure they are not a scam
This means they are a real breeder, with real kittens/puppies for sale but doesn’t necessarily mean they are good or ethical one –
visit the FAQ page for more information on how to find a good breeder)
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Ask for an in-person live video! Small snippets of a kitten are not enough and can be stolen from the internet just as easily as photos).
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Ask to see pedigrees - verify the information on them does not look photoshopped and that it describes the correct animal(colour, gender, name, birthdate). It needs to be a real associations pedigree. Not a software pedigree.
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Ask for their registered cattery/kennel name(you can search this in most registries and certainly can google it for more information(if there is any).
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Ask yourself WHY do they even have kittens readily available? There is a reason most breeders, EVEN THE NOT SO GREAT ONES don’t just have kittens readily available at any given time. Most have a waitlist of some kind. IF THEY ARE TRYING TO SELL ANIMALS at the click of a button, this is a HUGE red flag.
There is no kitten.
You will not get a kitten.
You will be out a lot of money.
Don’t be fooled. Be patient and find a breeder you like and trust(and hopefully who fits the qualifications discussed on the FAQ page about what to look for in a good breeder). Use your heads and encourage others to do the same.