Someone in Scotland please, help
 

Please, help me if you can.
I am about to receive 2 tea cup yorkie terriers from the woman I don't know.
She is in a Scotland with a missionary group. That is what she said.
I had received an email today that says she will ship but I have to pre-pay $147 and $100 on delivery.
The price is correct. Please, see if anything stands out as alarming to you. I want those puppies so badly I can't see very well:-)

This is where I should send money $147. It seems ok to me.

I am thinking if i will lost $147 - it will not kill me but I can be getting 2 free 10 month old puppies!
What do you think?

WESTERN UNION INFORMATION
To the information below ;
AMOUNT TO BE SENT :$147
RECEIVER'S NAME: BRIAN MACKAY
RECEIVER'S ADDRESS: 55 / 7 Easter Road,
EDINBURGH, Scotland.EH7 5RG



NOTE: YOU ARE EXPECTED TO GET TO ME WITH THE DETAIL BELOW
SO AS TO COLLECT THE FEE:
MTCN NUMBER:
SENDER'S NAME:
SENDER'S ADDRESS:
CITY:
COUNTRY:
I WILL AWAIT YOUR RESPONSE ON THE REQUIRED DETAILS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE TO
ENHANCE QUICK COMMENCEMENT.

Run away from this deal!!! And don't exchange any more correspondence w/ this person.

1) Why do you need to get your dogs from overseas?? No doubt, Yorkshire terriers are bred in your own country.

and 2) Whoever wrote that e-mail to you is <b>not</b> a native English speaker. If his name is supposed to be Brian MacKay, he would know how to write a letter in English that makes sense. My guess this is one of the Nigerian or similar scams.

These are all over the net unfortunately. There are no puppies. There was a piece on the news recently about a woman who had sent hundreds of dollars for a puppy, and received nothing. The photocopy of a driver's license she was sent so she would know whom she was dealing with was a fake. Not only was she out the money, her heart was really broken, because she really wanted the puppy!

With a Western Union prepaid request from an &quot;unknown&quot; person, I would HIGHLY suspect fraud. Don't be deceived by the &quot;missionary group&quot; reference since that is common to make you trust the sender. The language usage is also suspect to me. Did you check to see if there is such an address? Also if it is a women you are dealing with, why is the receiver a man? If you don't mind losing $147 and getting no puppies, you can do it. You might be better off checking local animal shelters or internet sites and spending your money on a puppy you can see before you spend it.

Thanks to all.
I just needed to run this trough someone else.
The only hope I had is that I did send an email to adopt 10 month old puppy but it was ayear ago and puppy was 10 month then.
Now I am thinking - do yourkies grow at all? They are still 10 month old! :-)

I appreciate your info. Very very much. I guess sometimes we just need a 'second opinion'.

Well, now I need travel advice and I have no idea how to ask. Will go work on my post.

Thanks so much again and again.

welcome to Fodors! You will get lots of good advice/info when you do post your travel questions . . . . .

...speechless....

OK, let's assume that you've been living under a rock for the last ten years and haven't ever heard of these scams, try just applying a little common sense and see if next time you can spot totally obvious scam signs yourself :-)

a) Why the hell would someone in Scotland send dogs all the way to the US (presumably as you talk of dollars) unless they were super-duper valuable breeding animals or something?

b)If they did, don't you think the air charge would be a hell of a lot more than $250? Not to mention any required vet exams, vaccinations etc first, cost of shipping crate, you name it. I doubt you'd get much change out of $800 or more just to cover the expenses.

c)Why would someone go to all that trouble to give you 'free' puppies and just (under)charge you the air cost? Especially as these dogs usually cost several hundred pounds (double that for dollars). Even if it was a worthless mutt to give away they are hardly going to send it all the way to the US, are they?

Missionaries in Scotland?

Using Western union transfer (no names, no id, no packdrill, just pick up cash with the password supplied by the sender)?

Come on, you can't be that silly.

Also 'tea-cup' dogs are just ones bred from what used to be called the runts of the litter - the crap underdeveloped ones. They can have a lot of health problems. They are not cute - they are deformed/stunted.

If you want a couple of Yorkie pups go buy a couple of healthy normal ones from a local breeder, where you can see both parent dogs (or at least the bitch), they've been well-raised, had their shots, etc...

Lots of people have fallen for this one. Yes, when you think about it in detail, it's obvious, and GroupTraveler must have had doubts, since she asked, but
a) some people are trusting, usually because they are honest themselves
b)the initial amount these people ask for is small enough that most people will risk it
c)you mention puppies and many people think with their hearts, not their heads
d)while I wouldn't think that there are a lot of them, there certainly are American missionaries in Scotland (LDS for sure, and probably others)

55 Easter Road is a Hearing Aid shop. So how they are breeding yappy dogs I don't know.

It's a con.

Exactly what I was looking for. Maybe someone knows the address.

So saga ended when she asked if I sent $100 and I wrote that I am very reluctant since there are scam going on - I gave her a link and said that lots of scammers are claiming to be on a mission.
Should I tell you that it was my last communication piece? :-))

Thanks you all!