Knock Knock, Where’s My Puppy?
The Perfect Scam
AARP
4.5 • 980 Ratings
🗓️ 19 November 2021
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rochelle scores a great deal on a house in northern Virginia, only to have her dream home transformed a few months later into Pet Scam Central. Day after day, strangers show up on her doorstep, claiming they’ve arrived to pick up a puppy they paid for. Some have driven over six or twelve hours with their family. Unfortunately, Rochelle must break the news that she has no puppies to sell, and the hopeful would-be owners leave heartbroken, confused and out hundreds of dollars. Even worse, over the course of a year, Rochelle finds herself accused of being the con artist. Desperate, she turns to a local news station for help in putting an end to the scam.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This Week on The Perfect Scam. |
| 0:03.0 | Only all news for a local family desperate for help after finding themselves caught up in a puppy scam. |
| 0:09.0 | We drive five or six hours. |
| 0:11.0 | Faith McCreary lives in Mount Erie, North Carolina and didn't |
| 0:14.9 | care how long the drive was. She was going to get the puppy she fell in love |
| 0:19.3 | with online. It looked legitimate. They had several different pictures of puppies, so I'd give them a $250 deposit. |
| 0:27.0 | That's when the Dallas learned their address was being used to pull off a puppy scam. |
| 0:34.0 | It is like a psychotic lack of empathy. |
| 0:37.0 | I would be honest here, I'm not saying that that is the scammer themselves, |
| 0:41.0 | but that is the scammer mentality and they all adopt this so |
| 0:44.7 | they will all go to whatever level that we'll get the money. |
| 0:50.3 | Crime hurts us all. The victims lose money and suffer emotional trauma, yes, but scams |
| 0:58.1 | often impact more victims than meets the eye. The skepticism they breed hurts legitimate businesses, and theft |
| 1:06.3 | forces them to raise prices so consumers pay more. You probably know that. But with many internet scams, there are hidden victims, innocent bystanders, collateral |
| 1:16.4 | damage along the way, like people whose homes are used as drop spots for stolen packages, or people whose pictures are stolen to make fake real estate |
| 1:25.8 | ads or fake dating profiles. |
| 1:28.4 | Today's story is a bit like that, but we're pretty sure you've never heard an innocent bystander story like the |
| 1:35.5 | one we're bringing you today. It involves puppies and well let's just get into |
| 1:41.4 | the story. I was brought up in Northern Virginia. |
| 1:44.0 | I grew up in Oakton and lived there for a good part of my life |
| 1:50.0 | and then went to Ashburn and then Leesburg, when we were looking for a house, |
| 1:55.0 | we searched the entire area |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from AARP, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of AARP and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.