I saw this Yorkie ad today.

[YoRkiE Te aMo]

Sweet Violet....I do not think that was the intent on this thread..i think it was only brought up about the scams due to many of us on YT have received emails in reguards to purchasing a yorkie from Cameroon ... but in general there are many suspicious offers going on... i found several this afternoon in Montreal and in Toronto too...all scams for sure..there are many indicators and most of us know that... so did the YT member that posted the thread...she herself stated it was close to her sisters place of residence in the USA ..that is why they were even looking at the ad ...There are many GREAT breeders in the World..but there are some dishonest people that are trying to take advantage of honest buyers...
And That is SAD for the honest ones

[SweetViolet]

Originally Posted by Lee B

Sweet Violet, I meant no offense. I know that things are priced differently in other parts of the world - which is why there are Americans who take vacations in Costa Rica to have their dental work done, or others who go to Thailand for surgical procedures.

But I'm sure you can agree with me that South Africa is much farther advanced than say, Cameroon. Or Nigeria. Or Sierra Leone. Or Eritrea. I would not be surprised, and in fact would *expect* to find reputable dog breeders in South Africa. But Cameroon? Not so much ...

I followed such an advertisement when I was looking for my little girl. I had money in hand and was ready to look at the pup and take her home immediately. The ad said she was local - but all there was for contact info was an email address. A Hotmail address, at that. The ad in the newspaper was only hours old, but Oops! he was already in Cameroon.

It was a scam.

My reaction comes from experience, certainly not from the price of the pup.

That is exactly how the scam ad from America was set up...the ad implied the puppy was local, but when I contacted the advertiser I learned I could have two puppies for less than double the price of one, that her husband supposedly worked for SwissAir and could get a deal on the shipping costs, and she simply ignored any of my questions that did not promote her scam. This scam was not being run out of Cameroon or Eritrea or Nigeria...it was being run out of America.

One of our local celebrities recently married a Lebanese business man and, due to his business activities, they settled in Nigeria. What is to say this woman will not take some Yorkies with her from South Africa and breed them there? You simply cannot assume, by the location alone ("AFRICA" as one YT member posted) that the ad is a scam.

[Nikis2]

I see these ads in our local newspaper that you can advertise in for free. I think after you contact them they get you to send the money for shipping and you never see your baby or money again. I mean really who is going to buy a yorkie puppy you no nothing about from a person you no nothing about that is going to take days to ship to you. That doesn't even make any sense especially when there are so many great breeder right here where you can go see the parents and quality of what you are putting you and you families heart into. SCAM all the way the nerve of some people do they have a heart in that chest anywhere.

[rileytrask]

i e-mailed someone about a yorkie...in another part of the world...
same story, can't care for it, just pay for the flight to ship her baby....
i e-mailed back, and said i travelled the world, and i would pick up her
baby...guess what...no more e-mails....don't get caught up in any scams...
like someone said if it sounds to good to be true, odds r.....:animal-p

[SweetViolet]

Originally Posted by YoRkiE Te aMo

Sweet Violet....I do not think that was the intent on this thread..i think it was only brought up about the scams due to many of us on YT have received emails in reguards to purchasing a yorkie from Cameroon ... but in general there are many suspicious offers going on... i found several this afternoon in Montreal and in Toronto too...all scams for sure..there are many indicators and most of us know that... so did the YT member that posted the thread...she herself stated it was close to her sisters place of residence in the USA ..that is why they were even looking at the ad ...There are many GREAT breeders in the World..but there are some dishonest people that are trying to take advantage of honest buyers...
And That is SAD for the honest ones

I agree. My cousin (a poodle person) was scammed on an advance-free credit scam several years ago in California. I warned her against it when the scammer demanded cash sent via Fed Ex to New Jersey and gave her 48 hours to get it to him or the deal was off. All the signs of fraud were there: not using the Postal Service (to avoid getting prosecuted for mail fraud), cash only (no paper trail), and limited time offer (to create urgency and no time to reflect or investigate). She did it anyway and, sure enough, it was a scam.

But that doesn't mean all offers of loans to people who are cash strapped are frauds or that everyone who lives in New Jersey is a con artist. It just means that we have to think and investigate offers that come our way, use common sense, and not fall prey to either wishful thinking or knee-jerk reactions.

The OP of this thread is fortunate that the ad was placed from a location near her sister's home. This allows her the opportunity to investigate easily (I suspected a scam when the advertiser just ignored my repeated requests for an appointment to view the litter). Hopefully the OP will find it is a legitimate ad and she will be able to get some sweet Yorkie puppy love!

[YoRkiE Te aMo]

It just seems no matter where in the world u are now a days there seem to be alot of scams going on ...i have had many e mails myself with tales of this and that ..just to get ur info and money...
In My Opinion ...and this just my opinion of course ..if i was looking for a yorkie to Love ..i would want to see and interact with the Little One...
before we got Oliver i went to see alot of them ..But when i was ready to buy i knew where to go and i met the one i LOVE

[SweetViolet]

Originally Posted by YoRkiE Te aMo

It just seems no matter where in the world u are now a days there seem to be alot of scams going on ...i have had many e mails myself with tales of this and that ..just to get ur info and money...
In My Opinion ...and this just my opinion of course ..if i was looking for a yorkie to Love ..i would want to see and interact with the Little One...
before we got Oliver i went to see alot of them ..But when i was ready to buy i knew where to go and i met the one i LOVE

Yup...same here.

I knew we were going to get a female and the breeder had two available. It was important to handle the pups and see how they behaved, what their personalities were like. Puddin's sister was fussy and when we tried to hold her on her back, she got stressed. Puddin' stayed on her back and fell asleep! Very mellow little dog! These are things you just can't tell about puppies unless you interact with them before you buy them. For me, this is important.

But other people, of course, have different opinions.

[YoRkiE Te aMo]

Originally Posted by SweetViolet

Yup...same here.

I knew we were going to get a female and the breeder had two available. It was important to handle the pups and see how they behaved, what their personalities were like. Puddin's sister was fussy and when we tried to hold her on her back, she got stressed. Puddin' stayed on her back and fell asleep! Very mellow little dog! These are things you just can't tell about puppies unless you interact with them before you buy them. For me, this is important.

But other people, of course, have different opinions.

YES, but alot of those people, (of course not all) in alot of cases end up unhappy or with problems with their little ones ...and the pups end up the victims..i saw on another thread they thought they were getting one pup...then when they received the pup it was another and they were not in LOVE with that one ..so they did not know what to do..I thought that poor pup ..was not with the loving family it needed so badly after all it went through ..Now that to me is SAD !

[SweetViolet]

I can't really comment intelligently on such a situation, since it is not something I would ever do. I like to see how the pup interacts with its litter mates, how it behaves when I handle it, how the mother cares for the babies, what conditions they live in, what the breeder is like...just a whole lot of things that would put me off from buying a pup sight unseen. I also would not have a young puppy shipped...in Puddin's case, the breeder was going to be in my town and he volunteered to bring her with him...but I told my husband that the final payment would be in cash (we had paid 30% to hold her) and not until I had examined the puppy and was satisfied. Which worked out fine for all parties.

The only time I would get an animal sight unseen was if someone I knew and trusted was being my eyes for me. And even then, I wouldn't be comfortable.

But, like I said, other people have other opinions---just like many of us differ on the proper age to separate the pup from its mother. What is right for one person can easily be wrong for someone else.

[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

[JCali]

Originally Posted by SweetViolet

If the pup is from overseas, you can't use the cost of the pup as a measure of it being "too cheap" because of exchange rates. I paid R4500 for Puddin, which is actually a little high for around here...but that translates to $450US.

If the pup is not from overseas and the price is very low, there could be other factors at play...like the dog isn't AKC registerable.

This is not to say that there aren't scams out there...there most definitely are! But don't be too quick to dismiss an ad as a scam until you've done a little digging. I can get you AKC registerable Yorkie pups for $500US or less (plus you pay the airline charges and for the crate) from South Africa (The Kennel Union of Southern Africa is a full federated member of the Federation Cynologique Internationale (FCI), has reciprocal agreements with bodies such as The Kennel Club, London, the American Kennel Club ...), so these deals from overseas CAN be legit!

Am I the only one who think her response sounds like another scam? Sorry to SweetViolet if this is not the case. It just seems suspicious that she immediately jumps in to defend overseas adoptions (which have "bad idea" written all over to me) and then says that she could get a puppy for one of us. How convenient. It sounds to me like she is trying to get someone to respond to her and ask her to get a puppy for them. Maybe she would be able to, but I get the feeling that that person wouldn't receive that promised puppy. Plus, by the time you pay for the additional health charge, airline charge, and crate you wouldn't have to spend that much more to have the security of buying from a place that you can check out and where you can meet the pups before buying one. Scams can happen anywhere, but anything to do with overseas I wouldn't trust.

[Nikis2]

I can not understand why someone would even consider buying a puppy or anything living they can not see first. How do you no the type of boning, hair, what the parents look like, the attitude, the bite, gate.....what good would a registation even be if there is one. Come on you don't even no anything about the person handling the deal if they really even have a puppy is all about. I am sure their are good breeders all over the world. But, I am sure a reputable breeder would not stick a baby furball on a plane for lord no's how long to another country.

[redracer]

I wrote to them one time before I got my girls they will ask for you to send the money Then they will send the puppy . But I asked to do a 3 party pay .Like pay pal and they said no that is when I new it was a bad deal .Bekka and Gracies mommy

[YoRkiE Te aMo]

wonder if they went to check out those pups..they were advertised in her sisters hometown newspaper ?
Will be interesting to hear the story !

[oopsmyhalofello]

The type of add's that are "scams" are clearly for "free dogs, you pay shipping". No location is brought up until you inquire about them and then it is almost ALWAYS Cameroon.. that is all over the internet and they ARE scams. There is no reason that anyone should put any trust in these add's just because there are reputable breeders in South Africa, which also makes me wonder how reputable would it be to ship a puppy over seas anyway.

I'm sure that there probably are scam add's running from people located in america too, there are bad people and scam artists everywhere.. its very sad. I don't think anyone is trying to put down Any geographic location, it just happens that the majority of the people on yorkie talk, have either dealt with these scammers personally or heard about them over and over again.