[chachi]

Originally Posted by SweetViolet

I am not FROM South Africa. I am an American who moved here five years ago.

The most recent scam I have seen...running in Gumtree, our version of Craigslist...is being run by Americans. It is offering Yorkies to South Africans at laughably low prices. I contacted the advertiser and am satisfied it is a scam based on her answers--and evasions. I did not just make an assumption that the ad was a fraud...that would have been intellectually lazy and ignorant of me.

Yes, there are scams, but not all of them come from Africa...and not all adverts from Africa are necessarily scams. There are puppy mills in North Carolina...would you assume that ALL advertisements for puppies from that state were from puppy mills? I bought a beautiful puppy from a breeder I found on Gumtree...should my experience of the American puppy scammer have convinced me that all Gumtree ads for puppies are scams from America?

I am simply asking people to have the common decency to not make negative assumptions based on the geography of an advertiser. Some ads are clearly scams, but don't assume they ALL are, simply because they are from afar. As I said earlier, I really can source championship bloodline Yorkie puppies for $500US...not much money for such a puppy to you, perhaps, but the top end of the price range for puppies in this country! But if I advertised that, would you dismiss it as a scam, based simply on my place of residence??

I agree all ads should not be discredited. I beleive you that there are very reputable breeders there. My beef was with the missionaries from Cameroon ads