I have been lucky enough to work out that this was a scam and pass on my suspicions to Crime Stoppers and the Police. Wanted to leave a msg out there to prevent others being taken in by this scam.
Free ads (linked to the sun.co.uk) website was advertising Chow Chow Puppies for sale @ 200 each. Told me to email for more info. The email addresses were all yahoo.com or hotmail.com (the police say that this is so that they are untraceable). I thought that this was an offer that couldn't be missed... most pups go for 900 . The person on the other end sent me some gorgeous pictures of the puppies and told me that they were free to a good home after his partner had died and his work commitments were becoming too much.
This all seemed legitimate until I found that his actual address was not that listed on the website and that he was located in Belfast. "Work commitments" he explained as I asked how I'd get the dogs over to me in the UK. He referred to using an animal courier. I pressed for the name. He said the "Animal Transport Service" in Belfast.
Searching on the internet for the provider, I soon came across some links that told a similar story of dog and cat scams. And no sign of the "Animal Transport Service". I phoned him and he told me that their website had gone down. At this point I picked up the phone and rang the police. They had heard of similar scams run before by a Nigerian group of people based in London.
He later emailed me a link to an alternative courier - Ipata Pets. Out of curiosity, I rang the contact number and when I asked to have a dog transported, I heard the distant screams of an African woman and was promptly hung up on.
Needless to say I have pulled out the deal, with no money lost but sadly no dog. All I want now if for others to know about this so that I can feel justice is being done on such an awful scam and conartist.
Annie
Cambridge
United Kingdom
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