This gentleman claims to be a Mr. Jamesly Duvra who is in Miami Florida, he has several ads on pet classified sites claiming to sell pairs of African Grey Parrots for $500.00. He asks for your name and address information and phone number in the first email, then in his next email he sends you a link to a site where you can make an online wired payment for the sum $500.00 which he says he must have before he will consent to send you his birds. I sent him the following email:
Not so fast please, I need to know a few things before we proceed with any payments:
1) While I do not doubt that you are who you say you are, I need a "company" name, and some references, like BBB report or something that lets me know that you are a legitimate company with a history of doing business in Florida. Ideally, and I must insist on this, I need the names and contact information of at least two people not in Florida, who have purchased birds from you in the past and with whom I can speak and verify that they are happy with their transactions.
2) What institution am I making the payment to? I will not send payment directly to any individual person, I'm sure you can understand with all the scam artists out there, I want to be sure I am not being cheated. If payment is to be made directly to you, I would prefer to use a holding company or go between, who will take payment and hold it until such time as the birds are guaranteed to be in route. Again, I hope you can appreciate that I need to protect my interests, I am not in the habit of sending money to anyone without having some way of verifying they are who they say they are. Thanks in advance for understanding.
3) Who will you be using to ship the birds and how will they be shipped? I believe that you indicated that their cage and toys would be included? I would like to see the cage they are currently being housed in.
4) What guarantees will I have that the birds will arrive safely and most importantly alive? Is their a return or refund policy if I am dissatisfied with the birds or if they arrive sick or in need of medical attention?
5) I would like to see pictures of the pairs of birds you currently have available and be able to choose a pair that I like.
6) Finally, I have friends and family in Florida that can pick the birds up for me if needed. If that saves me on shipping costs what would the cost of the birds be minus those costs?
I look forward to hearing from you with responses to these questions at your convenience.
Thanks!
He has yet to respond to my email, although he did try calling twice and presumably could not hear me although I could hear him fine.
I believe him to be a scam artist and someone to be avoided. The number he is using is a landline, unpublished and based in Lebanon, VA. Additionally, these other sites where he has ads indicate that he is in those states, I have already reported one of his adds as misleading and possibly fraudulent. In addition to free parrots with a $500.00 shipping cost, he also has ads for puppies throughout TX and in Colorado as well. He sounds like a Nigerian and so far I don't trust the guy at all. BEWARE!!!
He just scammed my mother out of more than $400 for a yorkie puppy. He talked to her all day about it (literally all day) leading her to believe that she would have her puppy by the end of the day. Then she received an email from a fake airport saying the dog was cold and due to some regulation she had to send $700.00 for a special air conditioned crate. The sad part is that is was her birthday and this "puppy" was suppose to be a gift to herself.
It sickens me that there are people who make a living on this dishonest behavior. If anyone would like to know his new phone number it's 832-477-5342.