One day last week, my mom was looking through one of our local newspapers when she noticed an ad in there about two Yorkie puppies being given away. She got kind of curious and told me about it. She said she didn't understand why Yorkies, about $400 or more dogs each, were being given away and not being sold especially if they were AKC registered. So I read the ad and noticed that it had an email address, but no name or phone number. I too wanted to know why the puppies were just being given away and not sold, so I sent the person an email. This past Friday I received an email back from the man and he was telling me that he wanted the animals to go to a good home to someone that could protect them and provide for them. He said that he, his wife, and three kids were now in Africa on a Christian Missionary trip and that no one had contacted them by the time that they had left so they took the puppies with them. I thought that sounded like the man really did care, but it still seemed a little odd to me. As I kept reading the email I noticed that the way he worded some of the sentences seemed sort of jumbled and broken, almost like he didn't know English that well. I just assumed that English might have been a second language to him due to the way he worded things. What got me the most is that the man claimed to be a pastor. He said in the email that he was a man of God and that he knew that I could provide a good home for his puppies. Okay, the man knew absolutely nothing about me, he had no clue that I'm a huge animal lover and that I'm going to school to be a Veterinary Technician. For all he knew I could've been a psycho or something.

He also attached a two pictures each of both the puppies. I looked at them and I had to admit, they were adorable. He went on to say in the email that he would be shipping them to me from Africa and that we would split the price of the shipping. I sent him an email back saying that I wasn't doing any business with him unless he told me more information about a few things since nothing he was saying really made a whole lot of sense. He told me that he was a Pastor in New York at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That struck me wrong because, for one, I live in Tennessee. Why would he be advertising to give away puppies from that great of a distance. You'd figure he'd be advertising it for the New York and surrounding areas not all the way in Tennessee. I went to google and search how much this so called shipping would cost to have them sent from Africa just to see if he would try to rip someone off with a higher amount. I couldn't find an exact price, but what I did find was a website about puppy scams.

The site listed different stories that people were finding and wanting to warn others about. One was about English Bulldogs that some man was scamming people with, but what caught me was about the 7th post on that page. There was a post from someone saying that they got an email back from this man whenever they told him they were interested in his two free Yorkie puppies. He email was exactly the same as the one I had received; same jumbled words and spacing of things. For example, I thought it was particularly odd that he spaced out the words of what the puppies were registered as. He said they were "A K C" registered instead of "AKC" registered. I thought it was odd the way he spaced the words out like that, you would think he would've put a period or something in between if he really wanted to separate the words. I know everytime I've seen it there's been no periods no spaces, so that really stood out to me. In the letter that this other person received, the spacing was exactly the same "A K C" instead of "AKC" or "A.K.C." I went back and compared the letter I had received and the one this other person received and everything was the exact same word-for-word. The only difference was that the names of the animals were different.

He had sent in a previous email that I would have to send my half of the money to him before he shipped them because they only had enough money for their parts. He told me that he spent all of his money just about on making sure the puppies were safe in Africa and whatever else they had to pay for on their mission trip. I told the man that I didn't want to have anything to do with the so-called puppies that he claimed he had. I said that I knew he was running a scam and that I wasn't sending him any money and to leave me alone. He could have taken those pictures of the puppies he claimed he had from any puppy website or any social site where people have posted pictures of their animals.

I'm just glad that I went with my gut feeling on this and did a bit of research on it. The whole purpose of me writing this was that I don't want anyone else to get caught up in this scam that this person is supposidly running. I immediately wrote my local newspaper and told them about it and they discontinued the ad immediately. Be careful at what you read and please take into consideration what I am telling you. I wouldn't want someone to get caught up in this.
 

Tomorrow my best friend is leaving to go off to college in Memphis. Rachel (gator_girl_13), I hope you have a safe trip! I will see you in October when we're both on Fall Break! Don't forget to write and let me know how things are going!

I didn't want to forget! Happy Birthday lion_lamb!
Hope you had a great one! :)

HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY RACHEL gator_girl_13 Here's to no longer being a teenager!! Hope you have a great day! I told you I would post it on here :) lol