Pet Transport Scams

It’s come to our attention that someone is communicating with customers about pet transport, pretending to be us and requesting payment for pet transport services. In this article I will share more information about the scam and give advice on how you can prevent being a victim. We are certainly not the only pet transport company that has been a victim of this and it seems the scam is very similar in cases reported by other companies.

Pet Transport Scam – What We Know

We are still trying to gather more information about how the victims initially made contact with the scammer. When we have more detailed information we will of course update this article. Currently we are unaware that any money has changed hands but we are aware of two recent individuals who have contacted us regarding making a payment which is how it came to light.

In our case and the cases that have affected other pet transport businesses the scammer buys a similar domain name. Our domain name is pettransportservices.co.uk and this is the only domain we operate under. The scammer has purchased pettransportservices.info which then allows them to send emails from this domain. If you receive any email communications from addresses that end pettransportservices.info it it NOT us! Indeed, unless the email ends pettransportservices.co.uk you can assume it’s a scam.

In some cases the scammer will even build out a website that looks identical to ours. This does not seem to have happened in this case but we are aware of this tactic. Again we only use this domain name that ends .co.uk so you can assume any others are scams.

What we don’t know is how contact between the scammer and individual was initially made. We assume the customer was looking for pet transport services but we do not know if they used Google to do so. We have done some searches ourself and could not find any evidence of anyone buying Google Ads. Hopefully the two people who have contacted us will be able to shed more light on how contact was made.

Tips To Avoid Being Scammed

There are a number of things you can do to protect yourself from being scammed. The following are just a few tips:

• Always check emails carefully. What address was the email sent from? Does the address look very similar to another pet transport business that ranks highly in Google and has lots of positive reviews? Always check the domain suffix. We are the only ones who have the rights to use the co.uk but we cannot stop others buying domains with different suffixes.
• What name has the scammer used? In the cases we know about the scammer calls themselves Sergio Martin. The case we know about that affects another pet transport business, the individual calls themselves Roberto. It’s clear from our About Page who works for Pet Transport Services and no such individuals do.
• Use common sense when being asked to make a payment. If you believe you have been communicating with Pet Transport Services and then you are asked to make a payment to a bank account that is named something completely different you should see this as a red flag. We operate from the UK and our bank account is located in the UK. If anyone quotes bank sort codes that are clearly from overseas it is NOT us.

We will update this article when we have more information. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions. Also if you are another business who has experienced a similar thing please feel free to share your experience so that we can help make consumers aware of how else they can protect themselves and what to look for.