DO NOT buy puppies from the Gavitts. Melody's Toy Dogs are a rip-off and a fraud! I never received a dog and I am out of $850 because of those scammers!!!
Here is how it all happened. It's is quite a long description (due to the length of the ordeal) but after reading this I am sure you will think twice before buying a puppy from them.
After months of trying to get a bulldog puppy and after dealing with 2 scammers online, my fianc and I saw an ad on Puppyfind.com on November 8 for a 3 week old female English Bulldog puppy named Priscilla. She was adorable and we fell in love with her.
She was advertised as AKC registered, up to date with shots and deworming and overall as a healthy puppy. I contacted the seller Brandy Gavitt (Talihina, OK) via email and she responded right away with a nice email and plenty of information. Brandy (I later found out her real name is Melody) sent us pictures of Priscilla as well as of her Mom and Dad and 2 weeks later sent new pictures again. We kept exchanging emails and there did not seem to be any problems.
We had expressed our wish to buy the puppy and agreed on when to send our check and when she would be shipping the puppy to us. The shipment date was going to be December 13. However, right before this date she said she was not going to be able to ship the puppy on that date and pushed it back to Dec. 18. My fianc and I did not suspect anything thus far, we had no reason to. However on the evening of Dec. 17, Brandy emailed me (she always emailed rather than called) and said that she won't be able to ship our puppy to us because the puppy has a flu.
Of course we were upset but what could we do, other than agree to wait longer, since we really wanted our puppy. She said the dog had to be given antibiotics for 10 days and she could be shipped on Dec. 30. We were so excited to finally see our puppy and pamper her endlessly. However, again on the evening of Dec. 29, Brandy emailed me saying that she won't be able to send us out puppy because the transmission of her car broke down and she has no way of getting to the airport which is 3 hours away.
She offered our money back and after discussing the issue with my fianc we decided to do so, to get our money back. Brandy said no problem. On January 9 we received a check in the mail from her. And we were unpleasantly surprised since the check was not for $1250 that she had promised to send us (a full refund). It was for $250 only and was accompanied by a letter saying that she does not have the money to pay us back right now and that we'd have to wait until she gets her tax refund this year and sells the puppy.
At this point we were really angry! She was not taking our phone calls or emails. I wrote to her that this is unacceptable and that we understand her family's circumstances, but she is obligated to pay us $1250 under our refund agreement. It was also unacceptable that she spent the money that we sent her before the puppy was delivered.
Finally she wrote back that she is very sorry and that she has high blood pressure and she is on strict bed rest for 2 weeks and since she does not have a cordless phone she cannot answer her phone. She said she does not know where her cell phone is. Her email was very apologetic and I must say we did feel for her and her health problems. However, she kept avoiding my phone calls and there was no way of getting in touch with her.in our opinion if she really felt so bad about the situation she would do anything in her power to resolve the matter, but she was not.
Instead, she was avoiding us. We were also confused how she was able to get to H& R Block to file her taxes is she did not have a car. And how she was able to send me all those emails that followed if she was so sick that she could not even get to the phone. Her claim that she cannot find her cell phone was not true either since when we called it ringed several times before going to voicemail, which indicated that it was turned on just not being picked up, this was still happening 3 weeks later (we did not try after that anymore) when she still claimed she did not know where her phone was. No cell phone would stay charged for so long.
We began to realize that she was just fooling us the whole time. Since we could not get our money from her, we tried to get the puppy to be sent to us. She had said it would take 2 weeks to fix her car and that's when she'd be able to ship the puppy (her husband could send it even if she was really sick). She was still not taking my phone calls and when I emailed her asking if she had found her cell phone she sent me back just short words: "No, I have no idea where it is. Sorry. I did file for my taxes on Wednesday though." I emailed her saying that she was just making things worse by acting so unprofessionally and immaturely avoiding us and that she is wrong expecting us to believe that there is no way she could call us this whole time. She emailed back saying: "I could call you on my land line phone but it would be no different than what I am saying on here. I feel awful about all this.
I am ashamed about it and cry over this. I am too humiliated to phone you. I am being honest. I do not know where my cell is though. I will get you your money as quickly as I can. I am so sorry again." At this point it was more than a month later from the original date of when we were supposed to receive our puppy and at the same time she kept selling other puppies online on various websites.
We wrote her back saying we are not stupid and do not believe her words. The bottom line was that if she wanted to resolve the matter she could have just sent us our puppy and everybody would be happy. She finally set another date for the shipment of the puppy for January 30. She made up this story how she is so sick and how her car is still not fixed etc (how long does it take to fix transmission?!).
She made me feel bad about her and I agreed to wait another 10 days few her to ship the puppy, which I admit was very stupid of me, but I was just so in love with the tiny baby bulldog. The whole time she kept ignoring us again and gave all kinds of excuses including high blood pressure, sick child (this has been at least the 4th time she had given me the sick child excuse over the past month). And I did believe her until I found a complaint against her on Usa Consumer Complaints.com website where another woman had been scammer by the Gavitts a year before and had been given the exact same excuses I had been receiving.
Then I was convinced I was being scammed. However, she emailed me that she had scheduled a flight for the puppy for January 30 and we thought that maybe, just maybe, this time it will all be over and everybody will be happy. I was not surprised at all to receive an email from Brandy the night before Jan. 30 saying she won't be able to ship the puppy to us. She said she will send the rest of the money. Although after doing more research on her online I was convinced we would not be seeing our money. I emailed her giving her a deadline saying she either sends us our money back by the next night by Express Mail or I will sue her.
Fortunately, I work in a law firm and have free legal advice available (thankfully I have saved all our emails and bank statements). I have been in contact with the other person scammed by the Gavitts with same excuses (her complaint can be found here: http://usacomplaints.com/reports/ripoff147884.htm).
She told me the Gavitts had changed their phone number twice when she was dealing with them. I gave the Gavitts another deadline and reported them to Better Business Bureau, but of course never saw the money. I am in the process of suing them and if anybody else has had similar problems with them please contact me. They did send us another $150 a week ago (it is not March 2) but I have not hear anything more about them for all this time.
I strongly advise not to trust these people. You'll save yourself a lot of heartache and money.
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