Claws out over not-so-purrfect deals
Victims report plague of scams involving pedigreed kittens
● For Francine Bester, the promise of a purebred Maine Coon kitten remains as empty as the imaginary insulated crate in which it was due to be delivered to her Pretoria home.
In fact, all she has to show for her pricey purchase is a dent in her bank balance.
Bester is one of a growing number of cat lovers who have been duped into handing over money for purebred kittens that don’t exist.
The buyers are drawn in by the “fantastic” selling price of the felines, lulled into a false sense of security by website links to reputable breeders.
The Southern African Cat Council, the Cat Federation of Southern Africa (CFSA) and the Cat Association of Southern Africa (Casa) have warned potential buyers to check their lists of approved breeders before paying.
Bester, a Maine Coon breeder herself, was looking for a male for her cattery. But after calling all the breeders on the cat registry she became desperate and went on the internet, where she found the bogus breeder.
She thought she was on to a good deal when she saw the advertisement for a Maine Coon kitten for R5,000. Kittens of this breed — the biggest type of domestic cat — can fetch up to R8,000.
A delivery fee of R1,400 was added, and then an e-mail purporting to come from a pet transport service pushed the price up by a hefty R9,000 because the crate in which the kitten had arrived at their premises “was unacceptable”.
Bester, the company said, would need to rent a temperature-regulated crate, but she would be refunded for this.
However, the kitten — which was supposedly being sent by a breeder in Kimberley — never arrived at OR Tambo International Airport.
Bester could not contact anyone involved in the transaction again.
Her bank told her the account into which she had paid the money was in the Northern Cape town of Postmasburg, about 200km west of Kimberley. She has opened a case with the police.
Casa president Johan Lamprecht said social media had fuelled the craze to own a pedigree cat, citing the case of “Grumpy Cat”, a cat of the ragdoll breed that became an internet sensation and boosted sales of that breed. Marinda Pretorius from Pretoria, who breeds Persian cats, often uses social media sites to advertise her kittens.
Her asking price is R7,000, excluding transport.
She said she recently became aware of a scam using images of kittens she had bred.
“There were four people involved. They joined my WhatsApp group pretending to want to buy kittens, but instead they were taking my photos from the group.”
A friend alerted her to an Instagram advert featuring a photo of her cats and offering them for sale at R8,000 each. Pretorius alerted the CFSA but has not gone to the police.
CFSA registrar Joan Blaettner, who has been with the registering body since it was launched 22 years ago, said the federation was first alerted to a con involving cats in 2017.
“Ten years ago there were no scams. Now we receive complaints and questions all the time. I refer them to the three registering bodies to check the names before they hand over money.”
Over the past year the CFSA has received six complaints from people claiming to have been cheated, three of whom have opened cases with police.
Lamprecht said Casa gets about 10 queries a week asking if a breeder’s website is legitimate. He said 95% of the breeders checked were fraudsters.
The Sunday Times spoke to at least 12 people from around SA who claimed they had been scammed out of sums ranging from R3,000 to R19,000.
There is a closed Facebook group with 195 members for people who have fallen victim to frauds involving Maine Coon cats alone.
Manja Coetzee from Pretoria, who was scammed out of R5,000 earlier this year after responding to an advert for exotic shorthaired Persian kittens, admitted she had been too trusting.
“I wanted to see the kitten but the sellers said they lived in Postmasburg,” she said.
“I said I had family there and asked if they knew them, but they didn’t respond. I decided it was too far to go to fetch the kitten and paid for it to be flown to me.
“I was then asked to pay for a special crate which would cost an extra R1,500. I never realised people were scamming buyers of cats. When they asked for extra insurance money I started to think something was up.”
She paid the asking price and additional costs anyway.
The Sunday Times attempted to contact the breeder and courier company Coetzee dealt with, but the numbers were no longer in service.