Let me tell you a little story about the time I got scammed into buying a dog online. I know what you are probably thinking, "how stupid could this girl be?" I just want to preface by saying I was not naive enough to hand over the money right away.
I was scrolling through craigslist simply browsing at all the cute puppies when I absolutely fell in love with this sweet golden retriever named Teddy. Her owners were moving to North Dakota and they knew she probably wouldn't adjust to the cold weather well. They had a small rehoming fee, but nothing compared to the price of a normal AKC registered golden retriever. WIthout even asking them, they sent over pictures and videos of Teddy, and even showed themselves in the video. Seems legit.
The ad said they were within 30 minutes of where I lived so I assumed that they hadn't moved yet, well you know what they say about assumptions. The kind people then informed me that they were in fact already in North Dakota and they would have to ship Teddy to us for an extra charge of $150 while that doesn't sound like a lot, it made me a little skeptical. I then asked the kind people to facetime me to see the sweet pup and they said they had never heard of facetime, but informed me that they are an older couple. Hmm.. Weird... Okay...
After talking with my roommate about it, we agreed to tell them we wouldn't send the full amount until we physically got Teddy. But we did tell them we would send the cost of shipping and half of what they were charging for the dog. We realized that it very well could have been a scam, but we agreed to not blame one another if it ended up a disappointment.
We sent the money over to them after talking in detail to them for over 24 hours, and they said the paperwork was being changed over that moment and that we would receive a tracking code for the plane she would be on in the morning. The next day rolled around and I texted them nonstop, when I didn't hear anything back I requested a refund on my money. They denied the request. I did in fact not get a dog, and I am still not over it.
I didn't even care about the money, I just wanted the dog.