Scams.

They are heartless, ugly, horrible crimes.

And this week I almost fell for a scam myself.

I do not consider myself a great writer but even if I did, I don’t think that I would have words to write how stupid I feel. I feel so stupid I almost didn’t write about this whole scam thing at all, but I decided to at the urging of my husband and friends.

Many of you know how much I’ve gone through with this herniation and surgery.

(Brief update on that…there seems to be a lot of painful swelling underneath my incision. We’re calling the doctor in the morning about it, but before that happened I felt like we had turned a corner. I KNOW I WILL GET BETTER.)

It’s been difficult for my husband to watch the amount of unending, god-awful pain I’ve been in. He’s wanted to help give me something to give myself something to hope for and positive to concentrate on. So, he gave me something that I have wanted my ENTIRE LIFE. Jonathan have disagreed about it ever since we started dating, but watching me go through all this for months and months, Jonathan put his wants aside and gave me the best gift ever.

Jonathan said I could get a Maltese Puppy.

We both want to get Butterlump a puppy for his 3rd birthday in May. Jonathan has always wanted a big, huge dog, but I have always, always wanted a pure white, blinking little cotton ball. A Maltese meets the needs of our family, but Jon and I have just disagreed over blinking wee cotton ball vs. big humungo dog.

I had LONG ago given up any hope of getting the dog of my dreams. (If you are not a fan of Maltese dogs that is fine. A good friend didn’t even say anything about it when I point blank asked them if they liked the dog of my dreams. I don’t think they had anything nice to say. (They were very supportive in every other way so it’s fine) I understand not everyone likes this very girly little dog. But hey…I will NEVER have a daughter…I figure this is the closest I’m gonna get.)

One day I was in sobbing to him (again) how much it hurt (again) and how I felt like it had been going on so long I felt it was never going to end. (again)

And he told me out of the blue that he was letting me get a Maltese and when it hurt too much or I felt overwhelmed that I needed to think of all the things I would do with my dog.

I still can’t believe he’s letting me get a Maltese.

Because I now have insurance and I AM SELLING MY TICKET TO MOM 2.0 in Miami in May, we are financially able to do this as well. I consider it going a LONG way in making up for not being able to attend one of my favorite conferences and see my favorite people. (If you want to buy or know anyone who wants to buy my ticket PLEASE contact me through the contact tab on my blog or my email if you have it.)

The problem is, I have no idea how on earth how to go about getting one. I live in Utah…it doesn’t seem like there are a lot of Maltese dogs in Utah.

I’ve never owned a purebred…I have usually owned cats or dogs from The Humane Society (And please know I am huge fans of them. All my 3 dogs and 7 cats have been rescue…BUT….I am firm and feel comfortable with my decision to go a different path this time. And yes, I have thought about it.) (Many on Facebook urged me to look into it so I looked into getting a rescue Malteses but there doesn’t seem to be much demand for them in Utah.)

If anyone could help me or knows a good Maltese breeder in Utah or could just give me help in buying a purebred, I’d appreciate it. I’ve been on the AKC website for weeks but it’s confusing…

Anyway, back to being scammed.

I saw online that there was a dog for a much lower end price. Right by where I lived. It wasn’t as much the price but I fell in LOVE with her face.

In love.

SO IN LOVE.

I mean look at her! Who wouldn’t love this adorable, lovable, perfect little dog??

Which was the point of a puppy scam I guess…to get someone to fall in love with the dog to make them an easy mark. Which I so was.

It was kind of late and I emailed, told her I lived a stones throw away asked all the questions and asked why she was selling her so low. She then said her daughter had died 2-weeks ago and that she was killed picking the dog up at the vet and so she was having anger issues having the dog around and just wanted her to go to a good home and that it was basically just to cover the cost of travel. I told her my heart broke for her. And that even though I lived so close I still insisted on paying.

Then the part I regret. I talked about my precious Matthew passing away.

How I felt losing him.

We basically email cried together. I told her to email me night or day if she needed and ear of someone who understood.

I told her I wanted to set up a time to meet with her and the dog. She mentioned she worked in downtown DC but lived in Virginia.

blink. blink. blink.

I said I was very confused as her location showed her living near me.

She assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem. I told her there was no way we could pay the cost likely required to ship the animal and it was important to meet the animal before we purchase.

Red flags were starting to go off galore when she wrote, “There is money you’ll have pay to cover for her shots before they’ll ship her so I will deduct that amount for you and then ship her once I have your money order.”

Uh.

Money order.

Money order paid BEFORE the puppy is delivered?

Shots we hadn’t talked about?

Oh, hells no.

My last email to her was this:

“Well, I’m afraid I never use anything to pay online besides PayPal and certainly never give funds before I receive the merchandise. It’s just seems so INTERNET SCAM, don’t you think?”

Of course, that was the last I heard.

There is a lot more to confirm it was a scam, but ya get the drift.

I am so angry. For one…I am pissed that in my drugged state irretrievably deleted their email (which oh, believe me, I was going to spread far and WIDE) and when I went back, the ad was removed.

I just cannot believe someone lied their child died.

You would think after the level of scum my plagiarist-turned-ever-kind-of-con-artist that I am STILL getting email about FOUR YEARS LATER would prepare me for this but it didn’t.

I talked about my sweet baby Matthew with an evil person.

My heart was so hurt for her.

My heart broke for her and for the loss of her daughter.

I don’t hate easily, but I hate this person.

I HATE THEM.

I need to get over this because all it will do is make my healing slower and hurt ME much more than them. They probably didn’t give me a second thought after they realized I was on to them. I am hoping that by writing it will purge a lot of my emotion and that crying on your shoulders will be the best medicine there is.

Anyway…thanks for listening.

xo