Cute dogs and empty wallets
I have previously written about the rise of “dog fraud” and the increase of fake websites and Internet marketplace ads offering designer dogs that don’t exist. Well, the breeds of dogs exists, the seller just doesn’t actually possess any to sell. These fraudulent sellers are usually found operating on web marketplaces such Facebook and OfferUp but have also gone to the extreme of creating entire websites. And some of them are well designed and functional, not just a Weebly template with some stock photos.
I suspect the next breed that will be the focus of scammers is the Shiba Inu. The rapid ascent of the Shiba Inu cryptocurrency has resulted in images of the dog posted front and center of just about every mainstream press website and periodical. It is a really good-looking dog and with a price range of $900 to $2500, it will also look good to the scammers.
In my experience, dog scammers had been focusing on the trendy and highly sought after, French Bulldog. I compared searches for the two breeds on Google.
“Shiba Inu for sale” (red) versus “French bulldog for sale” (blue)
Searches for the Shiba Inu are trending up, not as dramatically as I assumed, but have certainly risen to equal that of searches for French bulldogs.
I suspect that the Shiba Inu will create a lot of empty wallets, crypto, and leather.