Tim and Trudi Slezak advertised 2 adult Boston Terriers females for sale in July. When I inquired about them I discovered they were CKC and I was only interested in AKC. They wrote back and said they also had two AKC females they would sell if I was interested. Trudi said they would ship them both for an additional $500 and would have to drive them to Atlanta to ship them, but would include all of that in the $500.
I wired part of the money to them the next day as a deposit, then sent the remainder of the full amount (dogs plus shipping) within 3 days. The dogs were due to ship out within the week as one was due to come into heat soon.
The day before they were scheduled to ship, Trudi informed me that when they went to get their vet checks done, the vet would not give the okay for one to ship because she was in heat and the weather was extremely hot. She offered to breed her to her stud while she was there and wouldn't charge me. I agreed. She was scheduled to ship the dogs as soon as she was out of heat. She said she would mail the papers for the dogs that week. The papers never showed up, my first indication that they never intended to send the dogs to me.
For the next several weeks, I was given one excuse after another as to why they couldn't take the dogs to the airport. Their first and main excuse for not shipping the dogs was that Tim was having heart trouble and couldn't make the trip. During that same period of time I called her and she slipped and told me that she and her husband were hanging drywall. Heavy work for someone with a heart condition. At one point, I had a ground shipper lined up and ready to pick up the dogs the next day to solve the problem of driving them to the airport. All they had to do was give them the dogs and the shipping money. They stood the shippers up and were unable to be reached until the next day.
I continued to get multiple excuses regarding shipping the dogs and finally was told that they no longer had the money for shipping. They said someone had taken it out of their account and they never even received it. I reminded them that Trudi had talked about how it took three hours before the money registered in their account and they could pick it up, and also told me how she had purchased two more dogs that weekend (I'm assuming with my money). I suspected they had received the money and spent all of it quicker than expected.
Since they had no money to ship the dogs, and I wasn't about the send them any more, I offered to take 2 other dogs (they said they didn't have any more bostons) in trade for the shipping money and I would arrange for someone to pick them up and ground ship them. They agreed. I insisted that when the dogs were picked up, all registration papers, transfers, etc needed to be signed and ready. I asked for registration numbers on all of the dogs so I could verify with AKC that they owned them and Trudi gave me the numbers. When I called AKC later on, they didn't own a single one of the dogs, some of the numbers were fake or of a different breed, or was only a litter registration number. Trudi still insisted all paperwork would be in order when they were picked up.
It took about three weeks to arrange for someone to pick them up, because there were so many dogs and one was (supposedly) pregnant. I ended up finding someone locally willing to pick them up for me. During this time I had sent multiple e-mails letting them know I was working out shipping. I also left messages on their home phone as well as Tim's cell phone, keeping the up to date on the situation and asking for a good time to have them picked up. I received no return calls or e-mails. When it came to scheduling the pickup, they would not answer phone calls from either me or the woman who was going to pick them up, and they would not return calls when we left them voicemails.
Finally, after no return calls for two days after I had arranged a pickup, I sent them some articles about internet scammers who had been sent to jail for their crimes. I finally received a response stating they had "given the dogs away due to cold weather" since I was supposed to pick them up a long time ago. I had called and e-mailed repeatedly with not a single phone call back and then they had the nerve to say it was my fault for not picking them up?
They put me off for two months due to their own inability to ship the dogs but decided my three weeks was too long for THEM to wait. They had their money, they didn't care what happened after that.
At the end of it all, I was promised payments each month of $300 until the amount was paid for. It has now been 6 months and I've yet to receive a dime, or even the courtesy of a phone call. They told me that they didn't have any more dogs to offer for my money... But it was interesting to find one of their ads for adults and puppies for sale listed in March of this year. And guess what they had for sale? Boston terrier puppies. Needless to say, my hackles are back up.
The upside to this is that anything over $1,000 is considered a crime, not a civil case, and internet fraud is something that's being cracked down on heavily. The difference between this and most internet fraud is that these are REAL people who used their REAL names and their REAL address and REAL phone numbers. I've been informed that with a few phone calls and faxes, their REAL butts will be thrown in jail unless they refund my money IMMEDIATELY.
I didn't have the heart to send the police to their door shortly before Christmas last year and thought maybe I had waited too long to do anything at this point. Fortunately, I'm told time hasn't run out on this matter and I'm looking forward to putting the situation right.
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