This year millions of us have spent a significant amount of time at home, which has lead to a considerable number of Americans getting a new dog and an increase in pet scams. K R P S’s Fred Fletcher-Fierro has more.

As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its 9th month in Missouri and Kansas, many of us are continuing to spend more time at home, and we are buying puppies and training them. With more COVID-19 restrictions in place, consumers have turned to buying pets online, which according to the Better Business Bureau, could lead to a 5-fold increase in the number of puppy scams by the end of the year. Stephanie Garland of the Better Business Bureau in Springfield, Missouri, explains, “So it’s pretty crazy. In terms of the number of reports and the dollar losses. When we first released a report about pet scams 3-years ago. It was a half a million dollars, which is a lot of money. But now the projected end of the year loss is 3 point 1 million dollars nationwide.” The average amount of money that consumers are losing to each pet scam is 750 dollars. The BBB recommends seeing the pets in person before completing a purchase. And doing a reverse image search to see if the same pet is being sold someplace else. For K R P S, I’m Fred Fletcher-Fierro in Webb City