They all most had me!
One day I was contacted by a women who saw my ad on a local classified web page looking for mini dachshunds. She claimed she had two 8-10 week old female pups she needed to find a loving and caring home for. When I asked how much she stated that because I had children and other household pets they would be at no cost to me. I just needed to pick them up or pay for the delivery fee.
Sounded pretty good to me since each pup usually goes for around $300-$600 dollars! Plus she claimed they were registered and had a 2 year health garentee. She was always very persistant on how they were so good with children and other household pets, and they would change my homes atmostphere. She would write the same thing in every email, sometimes it would have changed a little bit generally the same. Her writing skills were also a bit strange, incomplete sentenses, missing words, that sort of thing.
She was located in San Diego, California and so was the company we were going to use for the delivery of the pups. Once I said I wanted the pups she did some searching and found a delivery company she was happy with that would deliver them rigt to my door. The cost to deliver two small puppies from San Diego, California to Fort St John, British Columbia, Canada was $325 dollars plus a refundable kennel fee of $140 dollars. I figured the price wasn't too bad.
I did some of my own reseach and found out that AirCanada would fly the pups for under $200 dollars. So that kinda make me think. I was then contacted by email by the delivery company informing me that all the papers were taken care of nd the vet checks were done. All they were waiting for was the payment to be make by WAL-MART MONEY GRAM and the pups would be on their way. The really wierd thing was that the head office was being audited so I was not to pay them but a different office in DOUALA, CAMEROON. That was when I googled Douala and found that it was in AFRICA! Why in the world would I have to pay someone in Africa for puppies that were in California!
So that is when I decided to start checking out scam sites and found MANY different sites with alot of the same information. Bad english, money before delivery, even claiming the certification of the pupies and that they were ready for delivery. Most of the emails from different companies also had the exact same wording as my email! Just different company names, and amounts, but they all had their billing address in CAMEROON!!! And all fees were to be paid by WAL-MART MONEY GRAM. Some were also Western Union.
I was lucky, I figured things out before sending any money. But that doesn't mean I'm not hurt by it, or my children who were expecting two new puppies. I truely hope this helps someone else stop and think before sending money for pets they havn't seen in person first.
Suzy
Taylor, British Columbia
Canada
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