6 Jan 2026

Be Scammer Aware – watch out for these Facebook puppy scams

Are you looking to add a Cairn Terrier to your household soon? Are you entranced by cute puppy pictures on Facebook groups?  Be Scammer Aware!  There are many versions of the puppy scam and the dollar amount lost to puppy scams is rising year over year. Facebook scam sites are common; some are intended to trick buyers into paying money for a non-existent puppy and others are click-bait scams (aka ‘like-farming’) Like-farming scams typically rely on emotional posts – sick puppies, death of a loved dog etc. The goal is to get as many likes and shares as possible before doing a bait and switch with the site.

Here is one version of a puppy sale scam

  • Scammer starts a Facebook group like ‘Cairn Terrier Lovers and Adoption Group’.
  • The group is salted with repeated posts from people reporting that they just took home a wonderful puppy from a breeder. The post is glowing with positive comments about how great the breeder was, how easy they were to work with and how lovely the puppy is and encouraging anyone looking for a puppy to purchase from this particular ‘breeder’ or ‘kennel’.
  • The picture attached to the post is often stolen from another breeder’s website.
  • The post provides a link to the scam breeder’s contact information or Facebook page, which itself is filled with stolen pictures, but typically lacks contact information. Often the only way to contact the ‘breeder’ is via facebook.
  • When someone contacts the scam breeder about a puppy, they are assured there are puppies available (most good breeders don’t have continuously available puppies – you might hit it lucky, but most of the time you need to be prepared to wait).
  • The scammer asks for a deposit or full price for the puppy. Often the deposit is requested in a format that does not allow you any recourse when you realize you have been scammed.
  • When it comes time to pick up the puppy, the purchaser is sent to a bogus address or ghosted completely about pick up details. If the puppy is to be shipped, the purchaser is often asked for additional money for a special shipping crate, special insurance or handling fees and even with payment of these surprise fees, no puppy ever arrives.

How can you identify Facebook puppy scams?

  • Look up the page or group details – click on the ‘About’, ‘People’ or ‘Members’ links underneath the page or group title. Some sites make it very difficult to see any information about the page / group or who is involved – in itself a red flag.
    • Check the admins and moderators for the site. These are usually found under the People or Members tabs. Click on the Admin name and check their profile.  This may show you that they are from a country known for on line scams (Nigeria, India, Bangladesh etc.) or that is highly unlikely to have a significant population of Cairn Terriers.  If any of the admins or mods are suspicious, the site should be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism.
    • How long has the page been up? Have there been multiple name changes? Scam sites are often transient – Once outed as a scam site they close down and start over with a new site or change the page name. A page or group that is very recent or has recently done a name change may be a red flag.
    • Do the admins post in the group? An admin that never posts or participates in the group is a red flag.

These are two examples of admins from Cairn Terrier sites – note that neither of them have made any posts in the site.

 

 

 

 

 

    • Does the page information provide real contact info (under About) such as a phone number and website link? Legitimate sites should have contact information provided.
This site has no contact information and no links.

 

  • Repetitive posts are a red flag. Scam sites often have very repetitive posts. These posts take several different formats
    • Posts designed to ‘hook’ prospective puppy purchasers (fabricated testimonials). Puppy purchase posts rave about supposed experiences with a particular puppy breeder or seller. Posts are highly scripted and if you have followed the group (or similar groups) for a while, sound very familiar. Typically, these posts will provide a link that takes you directly to the purported breeder.
    • Posts designed to drive traffic to the site (click bait, like-farming). These posts typically consist of a cute or sad picture with comments like ‘Say yes if I am beautiful’ or ‘Say hi so we know you are active’ or ‘I bet my dog won’t get any likes’.  Soliciting comments is an attempt to drive traffic to the group or page. Once a post collects enough likes and shares it may be edited to add a malicious link, or scammers may sell the site on the black market where buyers can use it to spam followers or harvest user information.
This is a click bait post. Also note that one scam site is cross posting to another scam site (same admins).

 

 

    • Keep in mind that even in a scam site, especially one with lots of followers, many of the posts may be legitimate, from well meaning members.  The presence of legitimate posts does not mean the site itself is legitimate.
  • Follower lists are private. Legitimate public sites typically do not make their follower lists private.
  • Check the source of images using a reverse image search tool like Google images. Here is how: open a search engine and go to images.google.com. Click on the camera icon on the right end of the search bar and paste or upload the image you want to check.  The results will show other places on line where that image has been posted. You then need to do a bit of sleuthing to see if you can track back to the original source.  For example: the image below is posted on a site called ‘Cairn Terrier Puppy Available for Adoption with the caption ‘I lost my boy today, 14 Years old. I’m broken and hurting so bad’. Posted by Nambu Ama Rash (the  very unlikely profile picture is a caucasian female) from Bafoussam, Cameroon. In the reverse image search you can find the image posted on Wikimedia with credit given to Redsflame created 2004 and uploaded in 2011. The dog pictured is Attractive Alex dell’Allevamento Reds Flame (Italy).  This same image and text is also posted on Black Cairn Terrier Lovers by a different poster. While someone could post a stolen image to a legitimate website, frequent stolen images or stolen images posted by admins or site owners are a huge red flag.
A typical click bait post. A reverse image search shows that the picture does not belong to the poster.

 

 

 

 

The poster has has a name that does not match the profile picture and the poster is shown as located in Cameroon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Consider the group or page name – Legitimate breeders typically use their kennel or personal name for their page. Legitimate Cairn terrier aficionado sites will tend to have generic names like Cairn Terriers Rock or Love Our Cairn Terriers. In contrast, scam sites will often employ terms like rehoming, adoption, or puppies available in the group name as they want to be easily found by people looking for puppies. E.g. Cairn Terrier Adoption. Hub, Cairn Terrier Adoption and Rehoming, Cairn Terrier Lovers and Rehoming.
  • Look for links between pages and groups – The Cairn Terrier Lovers / Adoption Hub is actually run by Cairn Terrier Adoption Hub. Cairn Terrier Lovers and Black Cairn Terrier Lovers are admins for Cairn Terrier Lovers Group. Both of the former are listed as digital creators.

 

 

Sadly, many, if not most, of the Cairn Terrier groups on facebook are scam sites.  Any time a site pops up in your feed it is a good idea to do a bit of sleuthing to see if it is legitimate – even if you have multiple friends already in the group. Be careful what you like and share!

Here are several legitimate groups

 

For more info on how to identify on-line puppy sale scams and click bait sites