PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — Imagine driving to a house to pick up the puppy you just bought on Facebook, only to realize there are no puppies, and the man who answers the door has no idea why you’re there.
That's what happened to one man in Pasco County. He said strangers are knocking on his door looking for puppies they bought.
"There's a lot of David P. Cruz's," David Cruz said, scrolling through Facebook in search of one page in particular.
Of all the David P. Cruz's on Facebook, alleged hackers found this one.
"A few weeks ago, I was called by a friend and they said, 'Oh, you have puppies for sale?' And I was like, 'What are you talking about?' And they said, 'Well, it's on your Facebook page; you're saying you have advertised that you have puppies for sale, Yorkshire puppies'," he said.
But Cruz isn't selling puppies. He doesn't even own a dog. Unfortunately, the inquiries didn't stop there.
"I started having people show up here at my door, saying, 'We're here to pick up our dogs.' And I was like, 'What are you talking about?' And they said, 'Well, we talked to you earlier today.' And I was like, you didn't talk to me? They said, 'Well, we've been corresponding with you on Facebook; we sent $150 in.'"
In the last couple of weeks, Cruz said about a dozen people have shown up. It's not just his house now. Cruz said the bamboozled buyers were sent to three other houses on the street.
One neighbor, Joe Vega, said it started with people parked in front of his home.
"Some of them eventually did just come and knock on the door and start asking us. I didn't know what was going on at first, but I was, like, really confused," he said.
It's leading to concern in the neighborhood.
"I have taken a couple of extra steps myself inside my own house. I feel like I probably am going to invest in more monitoring devices to see how long people were staying out there and just sitting out in their cars," he added.
It begs the question: How did the people profiting off the puppies even get Cruz's address?
University of Tampa Director of Cyber Security Programs Alper Yayla said it could be because of the information we share publicly and privately throughout the internet. Once a hacker has access to your account, they could gain access to anything you've posted or sent via private message. Then there's the issue of reusing passwords.
"Let's say this person is using [a bank app], right? So maybe [the bank] had a breach, and then they lost usernames and passwords. Turns out that this person is using the same password in their banks and in their Facebook account," Yayla explained.
Yayla stresses the importance of using various passwords.
Jon Clay, VP of Threat Intelligence at Trend Micro, agrees.
He said passphrases instead of passwords can be useful. He also believes using multi-factor authentication could make a big difference. Multi-factor Authentication sends a text or uses an app to verify the login.
"Usually, the bad actors don't have that second step or that multi-factor step, so they would be unable to compromise your account in that case," Clay explained.
Cruz said Pasco County Sheriff's Office told him there was nothing they can do. He has yet to hear back from META, the parent company of Facebook. We've reached out as well, working to get him some answers.
The other option is involving the FBI. Because this is so prevalent, the FBI has an online complaint center.
"We see, you know, billions of threats out there on a regular basis. So it can definitely be a challenge for people," Clay added.
Cruz said he's tried the website, but he's not hopeful.
"They said they're getting thousands of reports from people having internet, you know, crime issues. So mine would just be one out of thousands. You know, when probably here in Florida, it happens pretty regularly, especially senior citizens," he said.
