Pet Scams 101 | PureX Devon Rex Breeder Canada

How to spot a Scam

..... aka Pet Scammer Red Flags 101

If you’ve read this website before, or visited our social media, or joined any major Devon groups on Facebook, you will have seen us and others talk about how to spot a good breeder, an ethical responsible breeder who is breeding to better the breed, versus an irresponsible breeder, a backyard breeder, or a kitten mill(sometimes all three!).

However, scams are a whole other ball of wax. This is a crash course on how to spot a scam. This is written primarily for cats/kittens but these scams occur just as readily (and with the same red flags) for dogs/puppies.

1. Buy Now – Reserve Now payment buttons:

2. Incorrect Breed Descriptions:

3. Poor General grammar:

4. No pictures of parent cats or pedigrees or the cats' registered names:

5. You can't find reviews of them anywhere online(aside from their own website):

6. They want to call or contact you on WhatsApp OR Have you pay through an untraceable method:

7. They are offering kittens at a way lower price than you have seen anywhere else:

8. Strange circumstances leading to providing a top quality purebred kitten for free or almost free:

9. They want money down before showing you more pictures, or a video, or anything else:

What you can do to make sure they are not a scam
This means they are a real breeder, with real kittens/puppies for sale but doesn’t necessarily mean they are good or ethical one –

visit the FAQ page for more information on how to find a good breeder)

Ask for an in-person live video! Small snippets of a kitten are not enough and can be stolen from the internet just as easily as photos).
Ask to see pedigrees - verify the information on them does not look photoshopped and that it describes the correct animal(colour, gender, name, birthdate). It needs to be a real associations pedigree. Not a software pedigree.
Ask for their registered cattery/kennel name(you can search this in most registries and certainly can google it for more information(if there is any).
Ask yourself WHY do they even have kittens readily available? There is a reason most breeders, EVEN THE NOT SO GREAT ONES don’t just have kittens readily available at any given time. Most have a waitlist of some kind. IF THEY ARE TRYING TO SELL ANIMALS at the click of a button, this is a HUGE red flag.

There is no kitten.
You will not get a kitten.
You will be out a lot of money.

Don’t be fooled. Be patient and find a breeder you like and trust(and hopefully who fits the qualifications discussed on the FAQ page about what to look for in a good breeder). Use your heads and encourage others to do the same.