Caturday Saturday--Kitten Scam!

As our furrends know, Teri works at a cat hospital and also bred Cornish Rex for 22 years. She was a very responsible and conscientous breeder and she was proud of that! She had a 4 page adoption application and lots of photos of our home to share with people, and made photo and movie albums for each person who got a kitten from her.

In all that time, she only lost track of 2 kitties and that was due to the families getting divorced and Teri tried and tried to contact them but their phone and email addresses and even their references led to dead ends after that. There is not a day that passes that she doesn't get sad over those 2 kitties, because she doesn't know what happened to them or where they are now...

She wanted to share a story with our readers that was brought to her attention by one of the clients at the cat hospital. This lady's daughter wanted to add a Siberian kitty to her life and this is what happened to her when she answered a 'scam' ad! The FBI are now involved and hopefully this bad person will be arrested and put behind bars!

March 17th, 2011

I have one that will make you cry. I am a Marine who has been deployed 3 times to Iraq. I am still in the service and wanted kittens since my deployment cycle has stopped for the time being. I went on to http://www.olx.com and looking for kittens.

An ad was posted for Siberian kittens that were ready to be brought home. I emailed the lady and she told me she could ship them to me. I live in VA and she in Sunrise, FL. We had to communicate via email because she said she has an acoustic neuroma that has affected her hearing to the point of being deaf. She only asked for me to send the money for shipping and half of the price of the kittens. A total of $720 dollars. This is not out of the box for getting these kittens and for shipping an animal. She said she only liked dealing with cash and I didn’t have a problem with that. She gave a great amount of detail on the kittens that was compared to all the information I researched about Siberians. Apparently she did too!

She set up shipping, I received an email from a “JetPet Relocators” with flight information, times, the papers coming with the kittens, Royal Canin food, and who would be deliverying the pets to me. All of it looked on the up and up. Then an hour before they were to be delivered I receive an email telling me the kittens have been delayed at the transit point and require a temperature controlled crate for transport because they were under 3 lbs. I tried getting a hold of the point of contact at the phone number listed with the travel info, but I couldn’t get a hold of anyone. She emailed me and told me she got a hold of the people at JetPet and she could get payment to them the next morning if I just wired her the money and because the crates were a returnable deposit I would get the money back on my end when the crates were returned to the company upon a post travel vet check of the kittens.

I called my mom and had her call her vet to see if this all sounded correct. She told me her vet said it is sometimes necessary to use those crates depending on the company. So I sent the money..another $750. The next day, I got another email from JetPet telling me a temp health insurance had to be purchased which was refundable too. At this point, I knew something was up. The land line for JetPet is in another subburb of Ft Lauderdale FL called Hollywood FL. The distance between where she said she lived and where this land line is based is too far for traveling based on someone who is actually suffering from acoustica neuroma. Of course I have emailed the company repeatedly and called with no answer. I have not heard from the woman I was purchasing the kittens from. Her supposed name is Alleck Hathaway from Sunrise FL.

It’s is heartbreaking that I have served my country to defend the rights of this person. It is truly discouraging and shakes the very foundation of what I have to have with the person to my left and to my right in combat. It’s amazing how people like this have the rights they do in our country. I know I’ll never use classified ads or any thing other than seeing something in person ever again.