With Christmas fast approaching, and families looking for pets to give their loved ones as gifts, the Better Business Bureau is issuing a warning about a puppy sales scams online. 

One scam recently cost a North Texas family hundreds of dollars.

Dr. Nicckay Natson says when she came across a Google listing for a breeder specializing in Maltipoos, it was hard to resist the cute-looking puppies. 

“You know, I just wanted another animal to love on, to dress up, to put bows in their hair,” she said. 

Not once did she think the listing could be a scam. 

“If it’s on Google, you would think it would be legit because you have to pay, you pay money to be on Google,” she said. 

She communicated with the so-called breeder over email and texts and agreed to meet at an address in Dallas.  

Natson and her husband sent a $750 deposit through Zelle, but then, when they got to their meeting point, something just felt off. 

“When we got to the location we were looking and we’re like this doesn’t look great. Really, this is a hotel, they sent us to a hotel,” she said. 

She immediately got on the phone.

“A lady answered, and I said, ‘We’re here, we’re here, to meet you,’ and the person who answered the phone acted like they didn’t know what I was talking about,” she said. 

That’s when the Natsons realized that they’d been scammed. 

 “I just bawled and cried,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe that these people just scammed us.'”

“To be taken advantage of that way, it made us feel like we were just mistreated,” Alton Natson said. 

The Better Business Bureau says these types of scams are on the rise, especially during the holidays. 

“They are continuing because they are successful,” BBB Spokesperson Monica Horton said. “The crooks and the scammers, they pay for advertising, they pay for advertising on social media, they pay to be in the top of the search results.” 

The nonprofit says always do reverse image searches of the pets to see if they show up on another website, and don’t pay anyone a dime until you see the pet in person. The Natsons also recommend FaceTiming both the breeder and their customers.

You can report any scam to the BBB and of course, the police, but getting your money back can be tough. 

“A lot of these scams are perpetrated from outside the United States, so there’s not a whole lot that can be done,” Horton said. 

The Natsons hope all this information gets across to anyone in the market for a new pet.

\”Any deal that sounds too good to be true is too good to be true!” Alton Natson said.Â