Is puppies.com a scam?

Introduction

Puppies.com is a paid subscription service that allows users to access an online platform that connects buyers and sellers of dogs. The cost to list dogs for sale is currently $29.99 a month for sellers and free for buyers (if they decide to purchase they would of course incur the cost of buying the dog). Puppies.com has somehow worked their way to the top of the search results for buying and selling puppies and there appear to be a litany of consumer complaints around this website and questions about its legitimacy. So, I will be walking you through what I found on this company to better inform you, the reader, of whether this is a company you want to be working with. I will review who owns this company, its better business bureau complaints, and my recommendation of whether to use this service or not:

Company Owners

If you check the Arizona Secretary of State website, the manager of the business is listed as Bryan Peters; the member (aka owner) is listed as VIANET INTERNET SERVICES LLC. Interestingly, the member LLC and the manager have the same address which definitely could indicate that Bryan is also an owner of the LLC (pretty common for small business owners to manage their own businesses). Sure enough, if you check the Arizona Secretary of State website, Bryan is the owner of Vianet Internet Services LLC which you can check out here. It is slightly odd for an online pet market to be put under what appears to be a small internet service provider in Arizona but maybe it’s just one of many business that are owned by Vianet Internet Services.

Some of the corporate filings for Vianet Internet Services seems to indicate links between many companies that include Vianet in their name and also Roomate.com which is a roommate matching website which also has a hefty monthly subscription fee. So it seems like a number of people with the last name Peters own a number of business that are either owned by or affiliated with Vianet Internet Services that all focus on these Craigslist style websites that are supposed to be classier than Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace but are effectively the same thing.

Better Business Bureau complaints

As of the writing of this article, the BBB lists of customer review score of 3.85/5.0 stars which doesn’t appear bad. I find it’s not that useful to look at good reviews because they can be bought/planted and even scammy companies can have good reviews sometimes if they deliver on what was promised. In reviewing the 1 star reviews, the primary complaint appeared to be that either the seller took the money and did not deliver the puppy or the puppy was delivered sick and died or incurred extensive vet bills shortly after purchase. The business overall response was that they do not offer refunds or reimbursements as the purchase is between the buyer and the seller.

These aren’t great reviews to see but inherent in any marketplace are transactions that go bad and it’s only a scam if puppies.com knowingly allows fraudulent listings or does nothing to remove the pages of fraudulent sellers. There is not current evidence that this is the case, so from reviewing the the BBB reviews and complaints, this website is questionable but not necessarily a scam.

Conclusion

I don’t think this company or its affiliates are scams. They’re just ripoffs of existing large platforms like Craiglist, Facebook Marketplace, or similar and have a hefty subscription fee and fancy website slapped on top of them. This is a super profitable business model though since there’s almost no material cost and only minimal labor to run these websites. I recommend working with local breeders who you know or have a good reputation with people you know. If you’re a good breeder, your dogs are pretty much sold before they’re born with only minimal advertising or word of mouth. You simply don’t need to use these online platforms that don’t really provide anything except a website.

Check out our review of gingermalinois.com here.