After losing their Maltese, a Florida couple got scammed trying to bring home another puppy. The red flag that saved them from losing hundreds more

Robert Lutz and his wife, from Riverview, Fla., told WFLA News Channel 8 that one of their two beloved Maltese dogs died recently.

When they saw an ad for Maltese puppies on Facebook, they decided to answer the ad and add another pup to their family.

They told WFLA that they sent the seller a $100 deposit. But right before the puppy was scheduled to be delivered, the problems started.

The red flag

Lutz told WFLA that the seller said he couldn’t deliver the puppy due to personal reasons, but that he had a shipping company that would send it. When Lutz asked if he could pick up the puppy in person, he was told no.

Then came a clear red flag: additional charges that weren’t part of the plan. The seller said that Lutz “had to buy a $490 crate” to ship the puppy, though they live only 20 minutes from where the puppy was supposedly located.

The seller then said they couldn’t give the couple “any information about the dog, because the dog is not registered, unless you spend $175 to register the dog,” Lutz told WFLA. He said that he later found other ads on social media sites for the same puppy.

To add insult to injury, this isn’t the first time the family has been through this; Lutz said that their family fell victim to a similar scam in the past.

The ordeal was emotional for the couple, who had been picking out names and buying items for the new pet they were expecting. They also had become emotionally invested, after seeing photos and videos of the puppy, Lutz told WFLA.

He said that while their money is gone, he reached out to the media in the hopes that other families wouldn’t have to go through the same thing — he also noted that he had seen other posts online from people who had faced a similar experience.

Shopping for pets online

While the Lutz family’s upsetting ordeal involved a likely scammer, other issues can arise when purchasing pets from online marketplaces.

Dogs and cats that are sold on online marketplaces can often be less expensive than pets purchased from a professional, reputable breeder. That’s because pets sold online often come from so-called “backyard breeders” or “puppy mills.”

Backyard breeders and puppy mills may produce purebred animals, as well as “designer” mixed breeds, according to nonprofit PAWS.

Both backyard breeders and puppy mills are driven by profit, and the animals that they breed can be more likely to have health issues or issues with temperament. Reputable breeders conduct genetic health testing to make sure the animals they breed are more likely to be healthy, and they also select animals for breeding based on temperament..