Total money lost $1,115
Type of a scam Online Purchase
The first form of communication between myself and the scammers was over the email field web page on the website they had created. I looked through the website intensely knowing that puppy fraud has been happening a lot during the Covid Pandemic. Though I was confident that these guys were legit. My impatient personality of wanting something right away did not help the cause…
They got back to me the night of the original message stating that they were from Thunder Bay, Ontario. Had they been in the states, I would not continue conversation. With them saying Thunder Bay I thought to myself that this could very well work out. We went back and forth for days on end! I believe the final email thread was accumulated at 49 messages. My own stupidity was not to ask for a phone number and contact them directly. Despite the poor language and grammatical errors in some of the email responses I received, I was still confident that this could work.
They had asked for a down payment on the pup of $795 plus an additional shipping fee from Thunder Bay to Hamilton Airport. The grand total was $1115 and I had saved enough money to make this happen. Not knowing what the future had in store.
I quickly e-transferred the money to one of the accounts they had told me to send it too. Also the first time I got to see a real name as they were using a generic company email they had created to make it look more legit.
On the day of the scheduled arrival of the pup, was when it all took a turn. I received a phone call from North Carolina (the shipping company) in which I also looked into detail before receiving the call. Very broken english and very demanding. I received two follow up emails from that phone call that stated I needed to once again e-transfer a deposit of $1,500 for an "air conditioned crate". Despite the dog travelling with a registered travel agent in coach.
I found this skeptical and went to Western Union where the kind employee warned me about previous scams during the Covid Pandemic. I did not go through with that payment…thankfully and proceeded to call the shipping company back.
I asked for specific details on why I needed a deposit for the crate to the only response was "we will fully refund your money once you receive your puppy at your door".
I asked both the shipping company and the breeders to send me pictures of the puppy’s whereabouts and flight information that was promised to be sent as stated on the website. No answer.
Ironically, the breeders wife went into emergency…her heart rate must have been too high for the amount of lying…
After calling both the breeders and the shipping company out, I received an email from the breeders "you are starting to hurt my feelings".
Goodness me, I did not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings so I almost feel bad for writing this little script about them…on second thought, my feelings have been hurt every year from my sports teams so I am over it!