OLD TRICKS: I BOUGHT A PUPPY FOR $500 – THE FAMILY WAS SO EXCITED AFTER WE LOST OUR LAST DOG, WHAT WE ACTUALLY GOT WAS HEARTBREAKING

A Texas family who recently lost their longtime dog has spent $500 online for a new puppy but they have been left heartbroken after learning about the pet owner.

Austin resident Ricardo Gonzalez had finally moved on after the death of his Shiba Inu back in 2019 and were ready to add a new member to his family.

“We had a Shiba Inu back in 2019, and we kind of got over the fact that we had lost our puppy, so we were looking to get a new one,” Gonzalez told local Fox affiliate KTBC.

However, prices for a Shiba Inu around their local pet shops were sky-high, so Gonzalez decided to search online, and that’s when he came across Leo.

“So I was looking online, and I found a place on Google that was pretty inexpensive price for a pup,” he said.

“At first, I was a little nervous, but because I saw it was a Google ad, I thought it was legitimate.”

A Shiba Inu pup can cost an aspiring dog owner anywhere between $1,400 and $2,200, according to Hepper.com.

Gonzalez told the outlet he inquired about the Shiba Inu and ended up speaking to a man named Frank.

He and the man began communicating back and forth through text messages about Leo and discussed the best payment method to get the dog to Texas.

Gonzalez said he was given a Zelle account name and phone number to transfer money.

Despite being a little wary about the process, Gonzalez ended up sending the $500, and the man said he’d be in touch over the next few days to set up a flight for the puppy, who was being shipped from Omaha, Nebraska.

However, as the days passed, Gonzalez’s gut feeling turned out to be correct, as the man began sending strange text messages and delaying the travel plans for Leo.

That’s when Gonzalez began doing more research on the website.

“I came across a website called puppyscam.com, and on that website, it listed this website as a puppy scam,” Gonzalez told KTBC.

“It said the day that I’m supposed to be receiving the dog, I was going to get a text message or email from the shipping company saying that there were problems with the airline, that the crate was going to be undersized, or something was going to be wrong, and that I would have to pay additional funds to get the dog.”

The same review was precisely what happened next to Gonzalez, who finally realized that Leo did not exist.

Gonzalez said the person coordinating the sale eventually stopped responding to texts.

Online purchase scams made up roughly 30 percent of reported frauds in 2022, according to BBB scam tracker.

The top products used as bait are pets and pet supplies, BBB reported.