Puppy Scam Robs Couple of Their Life Savings

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[00:00:01] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

[00:00:04] Kelli Regan: My husband finally goes, "We can't do this anymore." And I'm like, "I understand, but what, what, what happened?" And he said, "We've spent an unbelievable amount of money that we didn't have." And I was like, "Okay." And he says, "No, an unbelievable amount you'll never believe." And I'm like, "Okay." So once I got that information, I went to my boss and said, "I need a second job so I'm only going to be able to work certain hours." And he said, "I'll give you a job so you can make up that money," and here I am cleaning toilets at my office.

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[00:00:36] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan. It's very hard when a busy, noisy house suddenly goes quiet. Michael and Kelli Regan went through this recently when their three kids moved out in quick succession, but the aching feeling of quiet got much worse when their two dogs, Luke and Maggie crossed the rainbow bridge soon after. Things got so quiet that as you’ll hear, Kelli didn't even want to go home after work at night. So the couple went online looking for a new pet to fill their home with the sound of paw prints and love again. Instead, they almost lost their home when a criminal stole just about every last penny they had. This story is achingly sad, but I promise, there's a happy ending too involving a puppy so small that Kelli had to cut a hole in a sock just to fashion a coat for him. But the journey to that happy ending is well, you just have to hear it. Meet Michael and Kelli. Kelli is a nurse and an animal lover.

[00:01:48] Bob: That means you're, by nature you're, you're a caring person.

[00:01:51] Kelli Regan: I would hope so.

[00:01:52] Bob: You can't be a nurse without being a caring person. Um, and that's why you care for animals too, I'm sure.

[00:01:57] Kelli Regan: Oh yes, very much so. Oh the, I'm very tied to... I love animals so much.

[00:02:03] Bob: Michael works as a security camera technician.

[00:02:07] Michael Regan: We're in Fort Worth, Texas.

[00:02:08] Bob: And how long have you been in Fort Worth?

[00:02:10] Michael Regan: Uh, since about 1982 when we moved here. I had actually moved away and back for short times, but pretty much lived in the same little town most of my life.

[00:02:18] Bob: Your whole life and it sounds like you're dog people.

[00:02:22] Michael Regan: Very much. We've uh had quite a few through the years when the kids were little to currently.

[00:02:27] Bob: You have three kids but they all, all essentially went out on their own recently, relatively recently?

[00:02:31] Michael Regan: Yes, yep, they uh, the last one went off to college I guess a year and a half ago.

[00:02:36] Bob: But after having a home full of kids for almost 25 years or so, it must be pretty quiet when all the kids are gone?

[00:02:43] Michael Regan: Yes, it was uh, it went from being loud with sports and being involved in all their stuff to, what are we going to do on a Friday night?

[00:02:52] Bob: Being involved in all kinds of stuff to what are we going to do on a Friday night? That's tough. But at least the dogs are there.

[00:03:01] Michael Regan: Yes, uh, we had my dog, uh at that time she was about 15, about 15, 16 years old. And then uh my middle daughter's dog uh couldn't go to college with her and so um, he's kind of a Pitbull looking, but he's a Great Dane Shar-pei. So big head, small body. And uh so he stayed and he was always was a uh, was a ladies' man for a dog.

[00:03:27] Bob: (laughs)

[00:03:27] Michael Regan: So my wife and my daughter, oh he cuddled and napped and everything else. Luke was in the chair with either my daughter or my wife on her recliner, and then my dog was in my lap in my recliner. Mind you, Luke and Maggie were both about 70 pounds of pure muscle.

[00:03:47] Bob: That's a lot on your lap.

[00:03:50] Bob: And the dogs got along, well the way a lot of dogs do, like family.

[00:03:56] Michael Regan: Him and Maggie, they didn't like laying next to each other like, you know some dogs that grow up to. Didn't like touching each other, but if you messed with one, the other would walk around and, and share, show teeth and back you off. So you messed with one, you messed with both.

[00:04:11] Bob: But not too long after the kids leave and the house gets that much quieter, Maggie gets sick, very sick.

[00:04:19] Michael Regan: I had to put her down Mother's Day. She couldn't walk any longer, um, as of literally that morning. Got up on a Saturday and last year and she couldn't walk, so I kinda helped her outside and at that point it was like, okay, uh Doberman's do have apparently hip issues and whatnot, but she had been fine literally up till that morning. And so um, at 16, I went ahead and I put her down.

[00:04:43] Bob: It's so painful. I'm sorry.

[00:04:44] Michael Regan: Yeah, we had to call everybody that afternoon and, of course it kind of ruined Mother's Day last year for us but it's all right.

[00:04:52] Kelli Regan: I think she, she just kinda looked up at him and said, it's time. It said, "Do you want me to go with you?" He's like, "No, no." And that was, to see him so upset, but it was heartwarming to me because I've never really seen him like that about a pet, so that was kinda heartwarming, but it was very sad at the same time. And it was pretty cool 'cause his daughter called, got a military phone call home, um, she was able to console him, make him feel better. That really helped.

[00:05:19] Bob: Their daughter calls home. She's away at college, but at this point she's at the Air Force Reserve Boot Camp to talk with her dad about Maggie's passing. And that helps, but at the time, Kelli and Michael are keeping something from their daughter. Luke, her dog, isn't doing too well either.

[00:05:38] Kelli Regan: That was, we had to lie to her for a while and that was really hard too. That was really hard.

[00:05:43] Bob: Just so she wouldn't be distracted during boot camp?

[00:05:45] Kelli Regan: Yes, but we had warned her that he was having trouble eating, and she said, "I don't want to hear about that."

[00:05:52] Bob: Yeah.

[00:05:53] Bob: And as so often happens, when Maggie passed, well Luke wasn't too far behind.

[00:06:00] Michael Regan: About three or four weeks later, he was acting real funny that evening. He went outside, probably 11 o'clock at night, he went outside, ran around for a few minutes, came back in, was acting kinda funny, slept in bed with us, so he jumped of course in the bed with my wife for a few minutes, and he was like just acting real goofy and came back out in the living room and laid on the floor. I got a drink, turned around, and he got up and, and made a couple circles, laid down, took a real deep breath, you can kind of watch his body, you know, inhale all the air. He let it out and that was it.

[00:06:33] Bob: Wow.

[00:06:34] Michael Regan: He quit breathing right then and there. Kinda sat there for a minute, kinda, I was feeling around for pulses and stuff and couldn't feel anything, and we figured he would die of a broken heart at some point.

[00:06:45] Bob: That happens all the time.

[00:06:46] Michael Regan: But that was it.

[00:06:46] Bob: Yeah.

[00:06:49] Bob: So there are more hard conversations to have, but not right away.

[00:06:55] Kelli Regan: So we waited till after graduation and then told her, and she took it really hard. But she showed her true strength because she knew, she was in a military uniform, and she could not cry.

[00:07:06] Bob: That is a lot for you to digest all at once.

[00:07:09] Michael Regan: Yeah, it was um, it was a rough month, I'll tell you that.

[00:07:13] Bob: A tough month indeed. So tough that home, well home just doesn't feel like home to Kelli.

[00:07:21] Michael Regan: It, yeah, it was, there was probably a good month where I would meet her at her office a lot, 'cause I travel around town during the day and I'd go by her office and we'd be on our way home and she'd be in her car, and she'd be like, "I don't want to go home. I want to go eat." "Okay," I was like, "you want to go eat, or you just don't want to go home?" And she goes like, "I just don't want to go home." So we went, I mean she's a, a creature of habit. She likes to be in bed early 'cause she has to get up really early to get back across town, and she's like, "I don't want to go home." "Okay." So we would stay out a lot of nights, a lot of, a lot of movies after work; we'd go see, we saw double features like on a Thursday night and like we gotta get up early the next morning, but we just didn't want to go home. And it was, it was eerie quiet when we'd go, when we would get to go home.

[00:08:03] Bob: And so after a few nearly unbearable weeks...

[00:08:08] Kelli Regan: I think it's like towards the end of July. I was like mentioning, "I've been looking for dogs." I was on Facebook. I said, "I've been asking a lot of questions on them, instant messaging," and I had said that to my husband, and he's like, "Are you serious right now?" I was like, "No really. I need a dog."

[00:08:26] Bob: So the search begins in earnest.

[00:08:30] Michael Regan: My wife had, she looked on Facebook, and she's one for looking everywhere. She found a couple on Facebook, tried to do a little research, talked to some friends that knew of people that knew of people. Just a lot of clicking online trying to find a, a breeder or somebody somewhat close that we could go look at, pick up the dog, preferably a puppy. That's kind of how it started. She'd, "Oh look here. I found these puppies." And I'm like, "Okay. Great." It's like, "Wow, they only want $900." It didn't have to be a purebred dog. We were just kinda looking for that size animal, not teeny tiny but big enough you wouldn't trip over that much. And coming from big dogs, you know, that was the way it was.

[00:09:12] Bob: Kelli is looking for a different kind of dog than Luke or Maggie.

[00:09:17] Kelli Regan: I don't even think my husband realizes. So when he was little, he didn't get to have dogs. And he always wanted a dog, and in conversation in all the years we've been married, I always mentioned to him, what kind of dog would you ever own if you wanted one? And he said a Basset Hound, so I thought, well, I'm going to have to see if I can find him a Basset Hound.

[00:09:37] Bob: Basset Hounds are amazing. The ears are just kill me, right?

[00:09:39] Kelli Regan: They look so adorable and that's one of the things he liked about them are their ears.

[00:09:43] Bob: And so they settle on a Bassett Hound from a breeder they find on Facebook.

[00:09:50] Michael Regan: Just a little, I think it was 8, 9 weeks old Basset Hound. Big floppy ears, even at that young age. I think that one was a little darker color brown, brown and white, was apparently registered through the AKC.

[00:10:04] Bob: Kelli emails back and forth with the breeder who says he's in Wisconsin, then she has a couple of phone calls with him.

[00:10:11] Michael Regan: He goes, great, you know, we love, we need some kind of deposit at least, you know or you pay for the whole dog. So we sent him a, just a couple hundred bucks until we got a little bit more in depth with it.

[00:10:22] Bob: Well at this point you're, you're what, $200 that you had sent so far you were saying?

[00:10:25] Michael Regan: Uh, either two or thr--, I think we may have sent $400. It was $200 to hold the dog, and then the $200 for the paperwork.

[00:10:33] Bob: The total cost for the dog will be $900 they're told. So they started to figure out how they'll get the puppy. Michael offers to fly up to Wisconsin but they say...

[00:10:44] Michael Regan: "We have a delivery service. They put him on an airplane. We have a person that rides with him, you know that flies down. You meet him at the airport," which like I say my oldest daughter had done and I said that made perfect sense because I know she went to the airport to pick hers up a few years ago. And so that's kinda how we went that way and that was kind of that, the game plan, and, and we followed through and paid them the rest of the, the $900, so another $500, was by gift card which was kind of, kind of odd because most people would do credit cards or, or Apple Pay or something like that.

[00:11:19] Bob: Gift cards, yes that's unusual, it's never a good idea to pay any kind of a bill with a gift card. But anxious to get their new pup, the couple agrees to send the $500 as the breeder requests. And they think that the puppy will soon be on the way. But...

[00:11:38] Michael Regan: I say, "Were there any other fees?" He goes, "Might have a little bit of vet fee," which was kinda odd too, but we, it was like, all right, well makes a little bit of sense maybe for vet paperwork or something, but you said that he'd already gone to the vet and had a clear checkup. So we, we kinda just held off on that for a little bit. About a day or two later we get, "Hey, dog's about ready to go." Great, you know. "Let me know what date, time, you know weekends work better but you know if it's during the week I have a job that I can sneak off for an afternoon and take care of whatever I need to take care of." Then we get a paper which says, hey, alright, well here, here's the price for the crates.

[00:12:15] Bob: The price for the crates?

[00:12:18] Michael Regan: So we're like, "What do you mean crates?" He goes, "Well you have to rent crates." "Why was this not told us upfront? You know, it said it was free delivery." He goes, "Well, you rent the crate, the crate gets put, the dog gets put in a crate and gets transferred." I said, "Well, I thought, you know, somebody was bringing the dog. That doesn't mean crating, that means it's got a special waiver, it rides up, especially being a puppy, it rides up with the person." And I was like, "Well that's fine. Don't need a crate, I will, you know, let me book an airline ticket and I can be up there in a couple days and just meet me at the airport and I'll get him home myself." And like, "No, no, no, we have to do it this way."

[00:12:52] Bob: No, no, no, we have to do it this way. The breeder insists. Rent for the crate is $400, but it's refundable Michael is told. So they send that $400 too. But then there's something else and something else.

[00:13:11] Michael Regan: We've got to have food, we've got to have water, all this other stuff. I'm like, well, he only needs a little bit of food to get to the airport, then you know, he's here. And so that, "Well now we need like $1300, and I've got to have it now." I'm like, "Well, I don't have 1300 to shell out of my back pocket at the moment, but let's see how Friday goes and we can, we can work something out."

[00:13:33] Bob: But, but now, now we're up to like $2000, right?

[00:13:35] Michael Regan: Yeah, we're up to a little over $2000, about 2500 bucks I think by the time...

[00:13:42] Bob: So this $900 dog has now cost thousands of dollars, and Michael still isn't sure when the dog is coming. Kelli had been so excited about getting a Basset Hound for her husband, but now, she's worried.

[00:13:56] Kelli Regan: So after about probably I don't know, I'm going to say about two weeks, that's where we're really questioning whether this was legit or not. And like this was really, what was really going on? I think in back of me just didn't want to, still missing my other dogs, didn't want to admit that this was happening, so I just kinda put that part out and just, oh no, we've gotta keep working, we gotta keep working. Didn't want to admit that it was, this wasn't going right.

[00:14:19] Bob: Still, the emotional roller coaster continues. And the delays continue and the fees continue.

[00:14:29] Michael Regan: We, again, I've, I've set with not having the dog already. Got real attached to the dog, even just on, online.

[00:14:36] Bob: You're trying to make your wife happy, right?

[00:14:38] Michael Regan: A happy wife, happy life. Isn't that the saying? And unfortunately my wife was getting upset, getting excited, getting upset, getting excited. "But we need more money." She's like, all right, well this is a scam, and then she would go the next day to work and she'd look at, find other dogs. Oh, look, that, oh, you know I think... I'm like, well we're already into it for you know X amount of money, you know, a couple more bucks. And it, a lot of it was just a little bit here and there. Well I need 200 bucks for this. And 200 for that, 250 for this and it um, added up when we looked at it.

[00:15:10] Bob: But enough is enough, and Michael tries to back out of the deal. But his worst fears are confirmed.

[00:15:20] Michael Regan: And so at that point he asked for more money. I'm like, "Dude just refund me my money." If there's any fees, obviously with, I'm kind of going along with, we've rented some of this stuff. Hey if there's, if there's like a deposit, a hundred-dollar deposit we lose, that's fine. I said, "You send me back four grand." And obviously never heard from them again other than I think for the next two or three weeks we'd get a text, or I would get a text on my phone, "Hey, we're waiting on that other money you, you guys were promised, you know to send us so we could, you know get this dog down to you." At that point we're like, "Well we told you we weren't sending you any more money."

[00:15:56] Bob: By the time they cut off all contact with this criminal selling this big puppy, Michael and Kelli have sent nearly $5000 to the criminals, and their house is still deadly quiet. So Kelli resumes her search in earnest, and this time she finds Bentley.

[00:16:17] Michael Regan: Yes, Bentley was named, was a light brown Basset Hound. Paperwork, even the lady FaceTimed my wife, and said, "Here's your paperwork right here in my hand. I've already got Bentley written on that." And that led into, "Okay, great." You know we've said, "Hey, you know, we got scammed by this other person." "Oh no, we're, we're in Nebraska, we're a lot closer." You know, "We're registered," and my wife looked up a bunch of stuff. There was registration for that group's name.

[00:16:42] Bob: So they put down a deposit on Bentley. Things seemed to be going smoothly, and this time, Kelli gets ready for the new family member to come home.

[00:16:51] Bob: So you guys had bought like dog beds and toys and all that, right?

[00:16:53] Michael Regan: Yes. My wife and Amazon were really good friends.

[00:16:58] Bob: (chuckles)

[00:16:59] Michael Regan: She's like, "There's a bed coming today. Oh I, I bought that one but I don't know if I like that color. So there's another bed coming, and there's another bed coming, and there's a set of stairs 'cause he's going to be short for a while, and we have a tall bed and there's a box of toys." It all got put in, in our guestroom.

[00:17:15] Bob: But soon the same kinds of hiccups are happening. There's a fee for papers, for travel, for food. There are delays. But finally the breeder says, "The dog is in a vehicle and being driven from Nebraska to Texas overnight." Kelli goes to bed. Michael stays up to greet Bentley.

[00:17:34] Michael Regan: 'Cause she's like, "Wake me up when the puppy gets here." I'm like well he's going to wake you up.

[00:17:38] Bob: Sounds fun being woken up from a deep sleep by a new puppy. But there's no puppy jumping on the bed to wake up Kelli in the middle of this night. No face full of puppy licks. Instead, there's a phone call from the breeder about car trouble. The drivers need money for repairs.

[00:17:56] Michael Regan: You know I came to bed, she kind of rolled over. She goes, "Well are they here?" I'm like, "They probably had a flat tire. They're going to be here in the morning." I said, "When you leave for work, make sure I'm up," at about 6 o'clock in the morning, and I'll go hang out in the garage. I hung out in the garage till about 10 o'clock that morning. They're, "We're on our way!" And, and then they're like, "Oh no, we're in Nebraska." "Well why are you there?" And "Well we had an issue and we need to, it's going to take a couple of days, you know...

[00:18:21] Bob: There's a few more back and forth conversations. They sent a few more payments to jumpstart the puppy's journey home, but well...

[00:18:30] Bob: So at what point do you realize this dog's not coming either?

[00:18:33] Michael Regan: It was, "Well we need this and we need more money for a shot." And I was like, I'm like, "No." And my wife's like, "Well what, what do we do?" And I'm like, it's another scam. We, and even she looked at me and she goes, "I think it's another scam."

[00:18:46] Bob: But Michael isn't quite ready to throw in the towel just yet, so he offers to meet the couriers halfway to drive to Oklahoma. They agree.

[00:18:56] Michael Regan: Got in the truck, I said, "Call me when you get to Stillwater, Oklahoma, or off of I-35 in Stillwater, Oklahoma." I said, "I'll be in a, I'll be in a brown Jeep Grand Cherokee." We drove 3½ hours one way up there. Again, I'm trying not to go ballistic. But you know, the wife's...

[00:19:11] Bob: You drove all the way to Stillwater and they ghosted you?

[00:19:13] Michael Regan: Oh yeah. Yeah. I've driven... I love my wife. We've been married, October it'll be 23 years. I've driven to many a states, many a places with and without her for her and I will do it every time. And after a little bit longer, we figured okay, you know, that's a hoax.

[00:19:30] Bob: But the criminals have one more tactic to pull on their heartstrings. During another phone call with Kelli...

[00:19:38] Michael Regan: Well she put it on speaker, 'cause it doesn't connect up to our car. And I laid in about a 10-minute rant. I don't even know what I said to be honest anymore. I just, and I'm driving down the freeway. And so um, trying to get rid of about two months of built-up anger. And my wife kinda got me to, got me to slow down for a minute and she goes, "Did you hear what they said?" I said, "I didn't hear a ..." and they're still on speaker. I said, "I didn't hear a damn word they said." She goes, "They killed the dog." And I went, "What?" So I hung up the phone and let her explain it to me calmly.

[00:20:10] Bob: They killed the dog? The breeder says there was an accident when the vet gave shots to the puppy and the puppy died. So they want help paying for that. The emotional shock of being told Bentley, their new puppy, is dead, almost pushes them over the edge, but by the time Michael and Kelli calm down, they decide it's all one big lie. A very costly lie. They cut off the breeders, but the damage has been done.

[00:20:41] Michael Regan: And so when we really got said and done and actually like adding up receipts and okay, she spent some for me, I was going all over town, not working as much, trying to get money and a couple bucks here and there; we realized we spent about $15,000.

[00:20:56] Bob: Oh my God.

[00:20:58] Bob: Combined with the first scam, the means the couple has had almost $20,000 stolen from them.

[00:21:06] Bob: Yeah, I mean of course it's an emotional roller coaster, right? You're thinking one minute that the puppy's here tomorrow, and then, and then there's no puppy. But do, do you remember when you finally looked at each other and said, we, we've got to stop?

[00:21:17] Kelli Regan: Yes. When my husband finally goes, "We can't do this anymore." And I'm like, "I understand, but what, what, what happened?" And he said, "We've spent an unbelievable amount of money that we didn't have." And I was like, "Okay." And he says, "No, an unbelievable amount you'll never believe." And I'm like, "Okay." So once I got that information, I went to my boss and said, "I need a second job so I'm only going to be able to work certain hours." And he said, "I'll give you a job so you can make up that money," and here I am cleaning toilets at my office.

[00:21:47] Bob: So you're, all you wanted to do was to get a dog partly because you're heartbroken because of the passing of your other dogs, and that, you end up having to clean toilets because of all that happened.

[00:21:57] Kelli Regan: Yes sir.

[00:21:58] Bob: Oh my God. I’m...

[00:21:59] Kelli Regan: Very degrading from saying you're a nurse to have to cleaning toilets in front of the other employees.

[00:22:05] Bob: Michael starts working overtime too.

[00:22:07] Michael Regan: I've got friends that do this kind of, kind of type work and they just need weekend helps here and there. I was working for friends after working all day. I was going out and working for them all night. You know I'd get home at 4 or 5 in the morning and take an hour or two nap and then go to my regular job.

[00:22:21] Bob: But still, Kelli and Michael are in real financial trouble.

[00:22:26] Michael Regan: Which we looked at and went, well, we're SOL now. We've got, that's our house payment, big kids luckily didn't live at home at the time, they were all at school. School was taken care of, so that was totally separate.

[00:22:38] Bob: But it got to the point where you were getting eviction notices?

[00:22:42] Michael Regan: Yep, we'd gotten a couple, and was able to stay out of that, but we would pay off what we back owed to stave eviction. But we were still not caught up. And so that would, that would go to the next month and I could get about a month and a half out of it, and then we'd get another letter.

[00:22:57] Bob: And given everything that's happened, Kelli is ready to accept that she will just have to live in a quiet, empty house.

[00:23:07] Michael Regan: Yep, we're at 20 grand, and that was, we looked at each other and said, we're done. My wife says, "I don't even want a dog anymore. I'm through." She was still looking online, just looking, looking at pictures, it was more of, of a calming thing for her. That would make her more upset. And so she finally goes, she goes, "All right, I don't even want a dog anymore." I said, "Well, let's, let's give it a year or two, the kids are doing their thing, and we can bounce back and forth and, and we'll just see how it goes." And, and it wound up to be, you know, we're just kinda done.

[00:23:38] Bob: What's the time span between the, the first payment you made, the first deposit and, and this moment where you realize, you know you're, you're out $20,000?

[00:23:46] Michael Regan: Four months.

[00:23:46] Bob: Four months, okay.

[00:23:48] Michael Regan: Four months-ish.

[00:23:48] Bob: And now you throw your hands up, we don't, no dog, this is too much, right?

[00:23:52] Michael Regan: Yeah, yeah. We, we both agreed we were, we were done and, and we were, we were both okay with that at that point.

[00:23:59] Bob: But slowly after working nonstop for a few months, things start to look better for Kelli and Michael, and Kelli's mom mentioned she knows a real breeder. She doesn't have Basset Hounds, but she does have Yorkies.

[00:24:14] Michael Regan: And she made a phone call, she called us back later. She goes, "Yeah, she had a litter that she's wanting to get rid of." "All right, well how much?" She said, "$800. They've got boys and girls." And so we get up early Saturday, drove 4 hours down to my mother-in-law's house, visited with her for a few minutes, gave me the address of where it was, drove another hour and a half out in the middle of nowhere in Texas, which is a lot of dirt roads, a house out in the middle of nowhere. Talked to the lady for a few minutes.

[00:24:37] Bob: And they choose a tiny, tiny Yorkie puppy, barely two pounds. And they name him Thor.

[00:24:47] Bob: What, what was it like to have a puppy in your hands finally after all this?

[00:24:50] Michael Regan: Oh, my wife was excited. For a while she actually had two puppies in her hands.

[00:24:53] Bob: Two is better than one.

[00:24:55] Bob: After all that you've been through, what was it like to have this little puppy in your hands?

[00:24:59] Kelli Regan: I was happy, but at the same time I was thinking, is this going to be okay for me to do? Can I do this?

[00:25:05] Bob: Now Thor is very, very small, I understand, right?

[00:25:08] Michael Regan: Thor, when he came home, my wife put him on the medical scale at work, and he was like 2.2 pounds when we got him home.

[00:25:16] Bob: Like a cat...

[00:25:17] Michael Regan: Like two days later.

[00:25:14] Bob: ...collar didn't fit around him, right?

[00:25:18] Michael Regan: Cat collar fell right off. And so she had already bought a couple little jackets and stuff and we got home, nothing fit. She had a lot of it with her. We went from being a decent middle, medium-sized bed to getting like the baby bed for dogs. And so Thor came home, and that was kind of the um, the extent of...

[00:25:39] Bob: And didn't you have to cut a hole in a sock in order to get Thor a coat?

[00:25:42] Michael Regan: Yeah, 'cause we couldn't find any, she had bought the smallest clothes she could find, but you know, just a little jack--, because it was cold.

[00:25:49] Bob: Yeah.

[00:25:49] Michael Regan: And he's a puppy, so if he goes out in the morning and nothing fit. Everything swallowed him. And so my mother-in-law said, "Just find one of Mikey's socks, and find one of those socks and cut a hole in the head and you know and we'll be good."

[00:26:01] Bob: Thor may be little, but he loves Michael a lot.

[00:26:05] Michael Regan: He does, 'cause he's a big cuddler. He's, my wife's, he's kind of turned out to like me more, which is not happy on her, but, but she's still part, and she's happy when she gets home and can relax. So when she gets home it's, it's, it's relax time and he'll come jump on her and, and waits for her at the door when the, when the, our phones ding when the other one gets home. They run straight to, to the garage door waiting on her, or me, whichever it could be, so.

[00:26:32] Bob: Thor sounds adorable, I have to say.

[00:26:34] Kelli Regan: Good ole Thor. Let me tell ya about Thor.

[00:26:38] Bob: Tell, tell me about Thor.

[00:26:39] Kelli Regan: So Thor is my husband's dog.

[00:26:42] Bob: (laughs) He said that. I wasn't sure I, I should believe him, but he said he was his dog.

[00:26:46] Kelli Regan: I have photos and I told him that I have photos. He said, "No, it's our dog," and I said, "Ah, not according to my photos." And they love other very much. He is um, it's so funny because he is, he reminds me of our dogs, one of our dogs we put down. He actually does remind me a lot of one of them.

[00:27:07] Bob: Which one? Maggie or Luke, it was, right?

[00:27:09] Kelli Regan: A little arrogance of Maggie and then the attitude of Luke.

[00:27:12] Bob: (laughs)

[00:27:15] Bob: Things are better now but it's been such a terrible journey from Luke and Maggie to Thor. And Michael and Kelli really wanted to share their story with you.

[00:27:25] Michael Regan: If you're going to find an animal online, do extra research. I would suggest going to the location, even if it's in another state, driving, physically getting eyes, before putting any large amounts down. Now if you've got to put a $200 deposit down to cover till you get there, say on a weekend or whatever, $200 is not that much to lose if it's, if it's fake. But that would be physically see the dog in your hand. Or if you're not close, somebody you trust to go put eyes on the, the animals. Send you pictures.

[00:27:58] Bob: So what do you want people to learn from your experience? What, what do you really want them to hear about this story?

[00:28:04] Kelli Regan: When it always looks so good, it's not. Ex--, go the extra mile. Even after they tell you, you know, they're down the street or around the corner, and everything they say everything correctly and so you know without a shadow of a doubt that this is right, it's not. Don't meet, meet up in person from the very beginning. Don't give money right away, don't even do it through the, the internet at all. Don't. Don't. I went through AKC as well and I still ended up in this position. So don't, don't, meet these people in person.

[00:28:37] Bob: Meet these people in person. Whenever possible, that's a really good suggestion, but it's not always possible. Buying a pet online comes with many potential pitfalls. So many that a man who goes by the name Paul Brady has devoted several years of his life to fighting against pet scams through his website, PetScams.com. He uses the name Paul Brady, a famous Irish folk musician, by the way, because the work he does is quite dangerous.

[00:29:07] Paul Brady: So I, I use the name Paul Brady because I have received a lot of death threats, so I've been involved in consumer fraud and protecting people from fraud online with roughly 20 years now in different capacities. It means that as far as criminal is concerned, I am taking money out of their pockets, so I've received a lot of death threats. One of the things that a lot of people that, that do what I do have taken into account is that you may receive death threats and your, your op sec, your operation security needs to be really good so that someone's not going to turn up on your door or you're not going to receive a package of heroin to your door which has happened in the past, in order to frame people, they've been swatted so the police will come heavy handed um, in order to release you from being kidnapped or something like that. There's lots of different ways that the criminals can actually get at you. So we use fake names.

[00:30:08] Bob: PetScams.com has been around for a long time.

[00:30:12] Paul Brady: So um, I registered PetScams.com in 2017, I believe, 2016 or 2017. The aim of PetScams.com was to list all the current pet scam websites to actively go and find them before they scam people, and to list all these websites. Now we automate this so we will publish, we can publish like 500 warnings in one day, and most of them don't have a lot of effect on the actual scam, but maybe 10 of them stop people from being scammed. For that sense it is worth the effort of posting all of these warnings about scams, and that's the simple, simple way it works is we find out where the scam websites are, we publish the domains, and then people are warned from buying from these supposed breeders.

[00:31:03] Bob: So I think I heard a puppy in the background as you were talking?

[00:31:07] Paul Brady: Yes.

[00:31:08] Bob: Of course you have a dog. What's your dog's name?

[00:31:11] Paul Brady: I am paranoid enough that I don't say my dog's name or my mother's maiden name.

[00:31:16] Bob: (laughs) But you have a dog, of course you do. So this, this is personal to you.

[00:31:18] Paul Brady: I, I do have a dog and I don't, I don't say what, what breed he is.

[00:31:24] Bob: What was it about pet scams that made you feel like you had to jump in and focus on that?

[00:31:29] Paul Brady: I worked on romance scams, and anyone that you have spoken to that works on romance scams will tell you it will take a large toll on your personal life. It'll take a large toll, you will spend too much time on it, and you will invest too much of yourself into it because it is a horrific scam. I, I burned out. I had um, several cases that I was working on that did not end well. I, I don't want to go too much into it, but I decided I couldn't do it anymore for my mental health.

[00:32:01] Bob: So Paul, who is a computer programmer by day, switched his focus to something a bit more technical. He writes code to automate the task of calling out the tens of thousands of bogus websites and social media groups that facilitate pet scams.

[00:32:17] Paul Brady: How shall I say this? They're run on an industrial scale, so the criminals that run a pet scam website will also be running 20 other pet scam websites. At the format, not of the website, but the actual scam, it's a non-delivery scam, they offer something for sale, you pay a small amount which will catch you on the hook. Once you have paid that small amount, you're lost in the sunk cost fallacy where the only way ahead is to pay more money. So when a new fee comes up for air-conditioned crate, for vaccines, for city permits, the scammer will continue to send you demands for more payments. What will happen then is you will keep paying until you stop. Now on all of these websites, with very few exceptions, it is exactly the same; the terminology, quite often the emails are the same. Different scammers are using the same scam, but everything has a fairly strict template that works for these scammers.

[00:33:16] Bob: So he runs software that checks through maybe a million new websites each day, looks for suspicious sites, and then forwards a few thousand potential crime sights to a set of volunteers who review them manually. And while getting all those thousands of bogus websites offline does some good, it's not really a long-term solution to the problem.

[00:33:37] Paul Brady: The website has been shut down and maybe one victim feels that they have had justice from this; however, the scammer has new websites. They will build a website in roughly 20 minutes after they realize the website has been shut--, their website is shut down, they will have a new one built. It is, they can do it automatically as, as easy as I can.

[00:33:58] Bob: Therefore, he devoted a lot of his energy to education.

[00:34:03] Paul Brady: The best way of stopping people from being scammed is making it common knowledge. Nigerian prince, if someone says I, I, I received an email from a Nigerian prince, 10 people around, 9 of them are going to go, oh that's a scam. I know all about that, it's a scam. Twenty years ago, it would have been five people would have realized it was a scam. The internet was not as prevalent as it is now, so not everyone knew about it. The more people know about these scams and the more public education that there is, your uh podcast is the best example. I, I listen to your podcast; every time something comes out I listen to it because I learn stuff from it, and it, it makes me run down different tracks to look at different scams, to find out when you're speaking about an, a specific scam, what websites were used, how I can use my skills to dig a little bit deeper into that. It was easy to warn people because you already know what the story is so you can tell a potential victim how the scam is going to work, and then they'll recognize it when the scammer starts trying to run their spiel when they tell you, oh, now you need to pay for a crate, that's when you immediately drop the scam because you've read it, you've heard it, you've been told this is how it's going to go.

[00:35:18] Bob: Paul has spent a fair amount of time talking to pet scam criminals, gathering intel.

[00:35:24] Paul Brady: I will call up a pet scammer and say, "Hi, I'm Paul Brady from Pet Scams. I know your name. I know where you live. I know your parents. I know your, your dog's name." And so I, using open-source intelligence, I'm able to find out all of that information and then ring them up. It is incredibly useful to know your enemy. It's so useful to know who you're speaking to. To they try to get in the heads of the scammers and how they justify what they do is fascinating and so interesting because you can use that information to find out what you need to do to stop it.

[00:36:02] Bob: So you don't bother telling them to, to give them a lecture. You, you just try to drill them for information.

[00:36:07] Paul Brady: It won't change his mind.

[00:36:08] Bob: Are they disturbed at least and a little concerned that you know who they are?

[00:36:13] Paul Brady: Oh yeah, yeah. I, I, um they speak to me out of fear. We'll have these conversations with, with scammers together, and find out some stuff that no one else knows that really helps us stop the scam that we're working on. Some of it was how they're laundering money. When you're having a, a relationship with the criminal, not with the criminal's persona, but as a security researcher, you're talking to someone and let's for sake of argument you hear this big scam that's just come out and he can't figure out how it works, ringing up the criminal and saying, hey how does this work? Have you seen this? And then telling me, yeah, they'll tell you exactly how it works. It's invaluable.

[00:36:54] Bob: One of the things Paul has learned through these conversations is how criminals use social media.

[00:37:01] Paul Brady: Facebook, Instagram, they've always been huge enablers of uh pet scams. I do not say that lightly. They will allow people to create a Facebook page. They will use stolen photographs, proven stolen photographs. The owner of the photographs can complain and they will be ignored and they can scam people. They can set up a group by using click bait images saying, "Oh, look at our new puppy. It's a baby dachshund." By the way, dachshunds are the most popular puppy for pet scams at the moment. They can, within a couple of months, they can have a group with 10,000 members, and then all they have to do is say, oh, they have a puppy for sale. We have a new litter.

[00:37:46] Bob: Right.

[00:37:47] Paul Brady: Anyone that complains about it are blocked, they're banned.

[00:37:51] Bob: Criminals will use hijacked or stolen profiles to administer such groups. So that lends them an air of credibility. And it's hard to figure out who's real.

[00:38:02] Paul Brady: But with Facebook, you need to do a lot of research into the individuals. When you look at the individual's profile and you go, this looks perfectly normal, it's the profile is 10 years old, but they stopped sending messages. So if you look at a profile that's 10 years old, it might have been hijacked a year ago. And with Facebook, if your profile is hijacked, it is very difficult to get it back. Facebook will not be interested. When a scammer starts emailing all of your friends to say, I've decided I am now changing, I'm going to start selling puppies. That profile's going to be trusted. So a scammer can take over your profile which will be trusted, scam your friends, and there is not a lot you can do besides actually telling your friends in person. They can then create a group, a Facebook page selling puppies, and they're very good at what they do. So they can get a large group of a thousand, 10,000 fairly quickly, and carry on the scam. I can find 20 of these on Facebook at the moment, these groups and Facebook will not shut them down.

[00:39:03] Bob: And I don't know about you, but I do think that these groups are, are just really effective. I mean I know breeders, of course, use groups to, you know, say they've had puppies or whatnot. And um, and you create this community and it, and you have it for months and months and it's the time that convinces people that this might be legitimate whereas just a, a website might not be.

[00:39:22] Paul Brady: I think that websites work because they look official, and I think Facebook groups work because they look popular enough. If it was a scam, it will be shut down by now. I've heard that so many times. This has been here for, for a year; if it was a scam, it would have been shut down by now. It has had 50 reports; it hasn’t been shut down.

[00:39:44] Bob: If it were a scam, it would have been shut down. This is a really important message from Paul, that is not true. Plenty of scam accounts live on for months, even years. Just because something had a long social media history, that doesn't prove anything. So, since Paul has been doing this almost seven years, I asked if we had made any progress on the issue since then, or at least since the time Paul was last a guest on The Perfect Scam.

[00:40:13] Paul Brady: The difference between 2017 when I started uh, 2021 when I was on the podcast with you, and now, is this arc of COVID, this need that people had during COVID, everyone needed a puppy. Morally I'm against that. A puppy for me is for life, but lots of people were in the market for puppies, and it was, I'm trying to think of the correct word, the internet was infested with pet scams. There has been a huge change in that not as many people want pets anymore, so there has been a huge drop. It is, the scammers have moved onto other items for sale now, mainly like I said, firearms, medicine, baby formula when there was a baby formula sho--, shortage.

[00:41:01] Bob: Of course, any time there's a shortage, that's an opportunity for a criminal, right?

[00:41:05] Paul Brady: Regardless of what the shortage is for. So there, there is no, there are no ethics when it comes to scamming people.

[00:41:14] Bob: So how do you protect yourself when looking for a new dog? Personally, I'd like to put in a plug for adopting a rescue dog from a local shelter, but if you're looking online...

[00:41:26] Paul Brady: So um, if you do a search for "How do you protect yourself from puppy scams," you will find thousands of posts saying the 9 steps, the 10 steps, the 11 steps, the 12 steps to protect yourself from being scammed. As far as I'm concerned, keep it as simple as possible. If you are going to buy a puppy, make sure one of two things; you go to see that puppy. That is the ideal. If you cannot do that, you have a video call, Skype, WhatsApp, any video, Zoom, anything that you use, people are very used to using video calls now; have a video call with the breeder, with the puppy at the same time, not a separate video call, it has to be at the same time. Ask to see the puppy's paws. Just say I want to check their, I want to check their paws. That way you can guarantee you're not looking at an actual prerecorded video. And um, ask to see the puppy's mother as well. That's just so you're not dealing with a puppy mill, but if I could give just one piece of advice to anyone, I would say, have a video call. If you're going to see the dog in person, have a video call first. That way you know at the moment you know that you are speaking with an individual. You know that individual has a puppy and you can now justify sending them a deposit. You can justify driving three hours to look at the puppy. That will be, that will be my main thing.

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[00:42:50] Bob: For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:42:59] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you are not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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