Puppy buyer loses R5 000 and identity to online thief
BARK WITHOUT BITE: The pug puppy that Julien Armstrong-Kelly thought she was buying Consumer Writer WHEN Julien Armstrong-Kelly realised she’d been conned out of more than R5 000 when she tried to buy a puppy online, she thought she could swiftly put the nightmare behind her.
But Armstrong-Kelly, of Richards Bay in KwaZuluNatal, could not have been more wrong. She — like so many others who fall victim to fraudsters’ slick sales pitches when shopping on the internet — found that money wasn’t the only thing she would stand to lose. She has now become a victim of identity theft.
Armstrong-Kelly fell prey to that double whammy this month after her internet search for a pug puppy led her to “Chantel”, who said she had “stunning” eight-week-old pugs for R2 500, including Kennel Union of Southern Africa registration papers, microchip, leash, “complete medical records”, “pedigree” and toys — plus a flight to Durban.
Armstrong-Kelly paid and sent Chantel copies of her ID and that of her father, George Wallace, for whom she was buying the pup, as requested.
Then came an e-mail, purportedly from a courier company, saying the airline insisted on a “temperature regulator crate” at an extra cost of R3 000, all but R50 of which would be refunded on return of the crate.
Not wanting to leave the fictitious little puppy stranded at an airport, Armstrong-Kelly paid that as well, via money transfer at a Pep store, as instructed.
When she heard no more from Chantel about the flight or the puppy, she realised she’d been scammed.
But the anguish didn’t end there. Strangers began leaving messages on her Facebook page.
“Are you the lady who has scammed me out of R2 500?” asked Siân. “I have a copy of your ID and I will go to the police if you do not transfer the money back to me.”
Whether they were looking for “ragdoll” kittens, French bulldogs, Bengal kittens or Rhodesian ridgebacks, “Julien Armstrong-Kelly” claimed to be ready and willing to sell them one, at a great price. And many of them fell for it.
“I feel so bad that my identity is being used to scam others,” the real Armstrong-Kelly told the Sunday Times this week. “They are even sending them a copy of my ID.”
Manie van Schalkwyk, executive director of the Southern African Fraud Prevention Service, urged Armstrong-Kelly to apply for the service’s protective registration, meaning her ID will be flagged to stop fraudsters using it to open accounts in her name — something she is terrified of.
On its website, Kusa warns people of online puppy sale scams, which “have increased dramatically in the recent past”. A too-good-to-be-true price is the first red flag.
“Not even back-yard breeders sell pugs for R2 500,” said Maré de Kock, a Kusa-registered pug breeder in Riebeek West.
She sells her puppies for R7 000, dewormed, microchipped, Kusa-registered and with their first round of inoculations.