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The advert is perfect: a pedigree puppy, photographed on a fluffy rug, available now at a price noticeably lower than every real breeder you have found. There is a reason for that. Puppy scams — and pet sale scams generally — are built almost entirely on stolen photographs. The seller does not have a puppy. They have a folder of pictures copied from genuine breeders, old adverts and other people’s social media, plus a script designed to move you from a deposit to a “shipping fee” to a “crate charge” before you realise the dog never existed. The photos are the weak point in the whole performance, and a reverse image search is how you test them.
How pet sale scams use stolen photos
A real breeder can photograph their actual litter, today, from any angle you ask. A scammer cannot, so they work from a fixed set of copied images and hope you never ask for anything new. The pictures typically come from legitimate breeder websites, older listings on pet-selling platforms, or the Instagram and Facebook pages of owners whose puppy photos were public. Sometimes the fraudster runs several adverts at once, in different towns, using the same photographs of the same puppy.
The rest of the script is built around those images. You fall in love with the puppy in the photo, pay a deposit to “reserve” it, and then the extras begin: a delivery charge, a special climate-controlled crate fee, an insurance payment, a vet bill that must be settled before the puppy can travel. Each amount is small enough to pay and urgent enough to rush you — and because there is no puppy, there is always one more fee.
Step 1: Reverse search the puppy photos
Before any money is discussed, save the advert’s photos — the clearest, largest versions you can get — and search them. Our free reverse image search tool runs one photo across six engines at once, which matters here because stolen pet photos often surface on sites that only one or two indexes cover well. Search each distinct photo, not just the cutest one.
Three findings should end the conversation immediately:
- The same puppy advertised in another town or country by a different seller — one puppy cannot be for sale in two places at once.
- The photo on a real breeder’s website or social page, where the puppy is a different age, already sold, or clearly part of someone else’s litter.
- The photo turning up in scam reports. Sites that track pet fraud, such as PetScams.com, catalogue fake breeder websites and recycled images; the FTC’s consumer advice pages also describe the standard pattern in detail.
Comparing copies properly takes a little care — look at markings, the background, and the direction the puppy faces, not just the overall impression. Our guide to how to check if a photo is stolen walks through exactly that comparison process.
Step 2: The video call test
A photo search checks the past. A live video call checks the present, and it is the single test scammers find hardest to pass. Ask for a short video call to see the puppy you would be buying — a completely normal request that every genuine breeder expects. During the call, ask for things a recording cannot provide: the puppy beside a note with your name written on it, the pup called by the name the advert uses, a view of the puppy with its mother and littermates.
Refusals come dressed as excuses: no signal, a broken camera, the puppies are “at the vet” all week, or a pre-recorded video sent instead of a live call. A sent video proves nothing — it can be stolen like the photos, and brief, blurry clips of puppies circulate among scammers. A seller who will not appear live, showing your specific puppy, on request, is telling you what you need to know. Walk away, however cute the photos are.
Step 3: Check the background, not just the puppy
Sometimes the puppy itself is too generic to match — one cream cockapoo looks like another — but the photograph around it is not. Kennel buildings, garden fences, number plates, road signs, shopfronts and even the breed of plug socket on a wall can reveal where a photo was really taken, which may be a different country from the one the seller claims. Our guide to working out where a photo was taken shows how to read those clues, and cropping the search to a distinctive background detail or a visible sign often finds the original when the full photo does not.
Weather and season are worth a glance too. A “current” litter photographed on snow in July, or in a garden in full summer bloom in midwinter, was photographed some time ago — or somewhere else.
When the search finds nothing
An empty result does not clear a seller. Photos lifted from private groups, deleted adverts or overseas sites may not be indexed anywhere you can reach. If the first attempt fails, work through the steps in our guide to reverse image search with no results: try a tighter crop, the flipped image, and each photo in the set, because scammers rarely steal a full set from an indexed source without at least one slipping through.
You can also approach from the seller’s side rather than the puppy’s. Searching the breeder’s name together with words like “scam” or “review” costs nothing, and checking the same phone number or email address against other adverts often shows the same contact selling different breeds in different cities — something no real breeder does.
Verifying the breeder behind the advert
Photos and video calls test the listing; a few more checks test the seller. A genuine UK breeder should be happy to show you the puppy at their premises with its mother — a legal and welfare expectation — and to explain their licence: sellers breeding as a business in England need a local authority licence, and adverts should carry the licence number. Ask which vet the litter is registered with and whether the puppies are microchipped and vaccinated, and expect paperwork rather than promises.
It is also worth searching their logo, premises photos and “our dogs” gallery through Google reverse image search and Lens: fake breeders build whole websites from copied content, and their kennel photos frequently belong to real breeders elsewhere. A polished website proves only that someone can build a website.
Payment rules that stop the scam cold
Even a convincing seller should never be paid in the ways scammers demand. The pattern to refuse, every time, is money sent before you have seen the puppy, by a method with no protection:
- Never pay by gift card, wire transfer or cryptocurrency. These are cash equivalents requested precisely because they cannot be recovered.
- Never pay “shipping”, “crate” or “insurance” fees for a puppy you have not met. This escalation is the heart of the scam; a real local breeder does not suddenly need a courier fund.
- Be wary of any deposit before a live video call or visit. If a deposit is genuinely needed, pay by card after verification, keep it modest, and get a written receipt with a real name and address.
- Treat urgency as a warning, not a reason. “Another buyer is paying in an hour” is a script line, not a fact.
FAQs
What is the quickest way to check a puppy advert?
Reverse search the photos first — a match on another seller’s page or in a different country ends the matter in minutes. If the photos pass, insist on a live video call with the specific puppy before discussing any payment.
The seller sent me a video of the puppy. Is that proof enough?
No. Videos are stolen and recycled just like photos. Only a live call, where the seller shows the puppy alongside something unique to you — your name on paper, a specific request — proves the puppy is really there.
Why do scammers ask for crate and shipping fees after the deposit?
Because the deposit was never the real prize. Once you have paid something, you are emotionally and financially committed, and each new “final” fee feels smaller than losing what you have already sent. There is no puppy, so there is always one more charge.
Can I get my money back if I have already paid a pet scammer?
It depends how you paid. Card payments may be recoverable through your bank, so contact them immediately. Gift cards and wire transfers are rarely recoverable, which is exactly why scammers insist on them — and why refusing those methods upfront matters.
