It’s a great time to be a criminal. Sounds strange, right? But thanks to the growing power of the internet, digitalization, and social media, it has never been this easy to find so many payment scam victims at one time. Paying electronically is far more accessible, convenient, and safe than the traditional method. It reduces the health and safety concerns due to a contactless transaction, especially during these times of covid 19. But you cannot ignore the severe consequences that come with it; fraud.
The stories are endless. Around $29.8 billion is stolen from Americans each year through payment scams, sometimes it is a widow with a heartbroken story of losing all her money in an attempt to save her dying husband, or it’s a person losing all of their savings just because someone got access to their accounts.
The whole world loves shopping! And this comes with the growing demand for online shopping due to obvious reasons. With so many customers sharing card details in the electronic world, scammers could not resist taking advantage, thus leading to an instant increase in online payment scams. These scams hurt other intermediaries such as big businesses and everyday individuals. According to a report, payment scams have led firms to lose up to $35.54 billion globally. The statistics are expected to increase with the growing influence of online shopping and transactions.
Payment scams, in simpler words, occur when someone intentionally steals or dives into another person’s private payment information or manipulates them into sharing it with them, later using that for illegal and false purposes. Scammers today are so clever. They adapt to each new trend by developing new and updated schemes and strategies. By 2023, online payment losses are expected to rise to $48 billion. These scams could come under many types, such as identity theft, where scammers simply steal the identity of someone else, merchant identity fraud, page jacking, and a lot more.
We know it sounds challenging and far away from the truth, but what if there was someone who helped the victims get their money back? Our client, Ayra, came to us all hopeless and broken when she lost all her cash literally because she desired to buy a pet! A freaking pet! We instantly asked her to take a deep breath, clear her mind, and be as strong as possible before moving forward with the process. You won’t believe it, but we at Chargebackway recovered her $17000. Yes, all of it! How great is that!?
If you want to keep yourself from being a victim of puppy scams, then you’re definitely at the right place. We can give you the best practices in identifying red flags as well as help you in recovering your stolen money from scammers!
Ayra Tilbury is a full-time housewife and mother of two kids, but as soon as his husband lost her mother due to covid in early March, she asked him to take a bereavement break and started working as a sales specialist in a firm. Just at the age of 28, she manages all the house expenses and has a considerable amount of her husband’s and her savings in her bank account.
Things have not been easier for the whole past year. Ayra Tilbury wanted to buy a new puppy during the pandemic to make things a little easier and happier for everyone else at home. However, the odds proved not to be in her favor, and a very well-organized group of scammers led her into a $17000 pet and payment scam.
Ayra’s husband lost her mother in the early march of 2020, just when the pandemic started. Whereas her mother had cancer, and the children were traumatized and depressed. In an attempt to make things better, she got an impulsive idea when her eyes caught the attention of an AD on Facebook advertising puppies. Now, pet scams have been occurring for many years. Still, the cases increased significantly with the onset of the pandemic, perhaps because pets started to be associated with comfort and company during the lockdown, just in the case of what happened with Ayra.
These pet scams simply occur when you see attractive and cute pets online and are asked to pay a particular amount to find out that the pet doesn’t even exist. Ayra says that the AD on Facebook came with a compelling story about the puppy and got details about their lovable and affectionate personality. As she scrolled through the advertisement looking at happy little faces, she felt her spirits lifting. She says that her thought was to make her mother’s last days enjoyable because of which the list price of $2000 did not seem much when she selected the puppy named ‘maxi’ with black spots all over and a beach hat. She also tried to see the puppy at first in person, but as usual, the scammer used the excuse of covid 19 precautions to avoid the meetup.
Thus, after a quick phone call, the deal was done. She says there were so many alarming signs that she ignored. When the scammer asked her to pay $2000 in the first place, she instantly agreed and ignored how big the payment was. Later, she received another request where she was required to pay another $500 for safe delivery as the company had already lost two puppies due to poor quality containers. Awful, isn’t it? Why would a company ever mention their faults and the death of two of their pets just so quickly? No wonder it was a scam, poor Ayra!
Not to mention, but the scammer asked for an additional $100 for the ‘nanny’ to deliver the dog to the cargo. “It was just the happiness I wanted to see on my family’s face, so I kept ignoring the prices even though my confidence started to shake.” Said Ayra. Later, she received a text saying, ‘your pet is on its way,’ which relieved Ayra greatly. Little did she know that it was just another tactic by the clever criminals. However, it was not long that just after 2 hours, she received another text which said that the security was quarantining the dog and they needed another $1100 to release it. Could they be real!? That was the moment it hit Ayra like a punch in the gut. They said that if she didn’t pay, Maxi would not arrive today.
If you’ve been a victim of a buyer scam and gave out your account information to scammers, then consult with us to help you get your account data and stolen money!
‘I know you people must be thinking that I should have seen the signs, but I was so rattled with the thoughts of my mom, husband, and kids that I kept ignoring everything else.’ Said Ayra in a talk to us. She paid an additional $1100, but the dog never arrived. The next day she received a text informing her that her mobile number was being relocated to a different network provider. She got a hint and tried to log in to her internet banking, but she couldn’t. As all her payments to the scammer were through online banking and card, she started receiving emails about her PIN to the credit card being charged.
She went to the bank immediately, where they told her that the scammers had maxed out her credit card and had stolen her identity, hacked her internet banking account, and stolen up to $17000! Disgusting! Ayra could see everything very clearly now. These people were not dog breeders but common thieves! She asked the banking App to reverse all the transactions made in the past 24 hours, but they denied it and said they were final. She also filed a police report, but they were of no help, nor did the app she used help her reveal the scammer’s true identity.
This is not all. Ayra didn’t give up. She went to numerous recovering firms for the whole week but failed back to back. Then she heard about our company Chargebackway from a friend, who we have helped recover their money in the past that they lost in a dating scam. We at Chargebackway, through an extensive research process, investigations, and analysis through several steps of building the case and collecting the evidence, make sure to get everyone their money back as it is our utmost priority! Finally, Ayra came to us.
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The first thing Ayra said to us as soon as she came to our office was, ‘This pet scam was the worst thing that could happen to me at the worst time of my life.’ This broke our team, and thus was the moment we decided to put our utmost energy, expertise, and time into the case, which is what we are best at! Do you know what is so unfortunate yet true? The number of pet scams through online payments had been very high in 2021. In just the first nine months, there were 3116 reports with losses of $2.4 billion. Ayra was our first ever client subjected to both payment (identity theft) scam and the pet scam.
The worst one could go through. She already lost a massive amount of money into the scam, clearly all of her savings. She told us that she has heard how our company provides the clients with the most professional recovery service within their budget and wanted us to charge as low as possible. Using our customer service to its full potential, we asked her to pay us only if we were successful in recovering her money in the end. She was overjoyed, and that is what motivated us even more. Initially, we started with reviewing her case, which is our first step towards the recovery process. Here Ayra told us at what times the scammers communicated, what was the communication medium, and what amount she paid after every message.
Phone calls, text messages, payment details, and account details were all obtained to strengthen the case. Our members decided to involve a third party that was the federal trade commission. After getting all the evidence and a lengthy investigation procedure, they issued the 60% amount to Ayra in a refund. We also implemented the credit freeze on Ayra’s credit report to prevent the scammer from taking out a loan. The creation of a fraud alert also followed it. Nevertheless, Ayra was happy with the 60% amount she had recovered and wanted to withdraw her case. Perhaps, she lost her hope in the remaining amount. But we were persistent and eager to get back the 40% too.
By tracking the number of the scammer and the location from where he tried to log in, along with other procedures, we finally caught him!! It was a long and challenging process, but we were successful. Lastly, Ayra’s story has the happiest ending. Customer service is one of our biggest priorities at Chargebackway. Thus we gave her a small puppy similar to what she wanted. The smile and joy on her face were priceless, and this is what we strive to see on all our clients! Although the case was a success, we recommend everyone to be alert and follow steps to dodge a payment scam. For example, transfer money ONLY to the people you know personally and enable security features like multi factor authentication to all your accounts.
Also, watch out for the red flags; you never know how smoothly scammers have set traps for you. In cases like these, no phone calls, copycat photos, and a price too reasonable to be true could be helpful. Hence, there is no guaranteed method for preventing payment scams, but there are always some ways to ensure the mitigating of adverse consequences they cause. Remember! It’s never too late to report. Payment scam is now everywhere, but that does not mean you cannot avoid them or recover through them. We at Chargeback Way guarantee recovery and protection of all types of scams. Please do not give up; we encourage everyone to come to us if they have been scammed or are even in the process of getting scammed. We also guide where to get help and how to protect yourself from scams. Visit our website and spread the word to your loved ones to keep them safe!
Victims of scams are stressed out because they don’t know what to do. We have the tools and experience to fight off scams, and our team can help you in getting your money back.
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