A woman has been conned out of £400 and threatened with “black magic” after trying to buy a puppy on the internet. Joanna French, 27, spotted an advert on the Sun Local website – branded like the national newspaper of the same name but run by Oodle, an internet classified service – and sent the money expecting to receive the new dog. When it didn’t turn up and she complained, she was threatened by a gang operating out of Cameroon and told “black magic” would be placed upon her. She has taken her case to Vince Cable, MP for Twickenham, who is taking it up with the police, the Office of Fair Trading and trading standards. Miss French, of Hampton, explained she wanted to get a new companion for her dog Ben, after her other canine, Tipsy, died. She said: “There were lots of emails, it all looked quite legit. They had all the right things. “I rang up the Sun Local but they told me it was my fault. Now the sellers keep ringing me up, even after I told them I would phone the police.
“They said if I didn’t give them more money they would put black magic on me – it is frightening, you don’t know what people are capable of.
“I know I won’t get my money back, I just want to warn other people.”
Dr Cable said: “I come across numerous cases of fraud and extortion from gangs operating out of Africa and China. They are sometimes very sophisticated and could only be carried out with inside contacts in the UK.
“There is no defence against these scams other than making people aware of them.”
Miss French, who lives with 16-year-old niece Gemma, her brother and sister-in-law, has now got a new dog – Angel.
Duncan Dunlop, general manager of Oodle UK, said the advert had been removed within three days when it was flagged up by their system as a possible scam.
He said the website had a number of systems in place to protect consumers.
He added: “We also publish clear warnings on the site, specifically in pets, to warn users not to deal with people they have not met or wire money abroad.”
This is Local London
Article publié le Sunday, February 8, 2009