About the Museum
The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about dubious- sounding claims, and whatever else strikes our fancy. The site is also home to the Hoaxipedia (the museum's online encyclopedia of hoaxes), the Hoax Forum, and the Top 100 April Fools' Day Hoaxes.

The museum was created in 1997 by Alex Boese. He's assisted by a staff of deputy curators and docents. Alex is the author of three books, most recently Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments (which has nothing to do with hoaxes). Check out the list of the Top 20 Most Bizarre Experiments of All Time for a preview.

Web Hoax Museum

"... You're lucky to have mailed at this time because the puppy has just been placed on adoption by one of my customers, who went on a veterinarian work transfer with the West African veterinarian commission Lagos Nigeria, West Africa. He is giving the pup up for adoption because he cant take good care of the pup due to his busy and tight state of work. All he wants is someone that's homely and with a good christian home to adopt this young and lovely human best friend."

YUP I WAS ALMOST A VICTIM TODAY FROM THAT DIRTY ROTTON SCAMMER!!! I EVEN SENT MY BOYFRIEND TO WESTERN UNION TO GET ME THE PAPERS TO FILL OUT AND I WAS ON MY WAY TO DROP THEM OFF TO SEND THE DOE...BUT THANK GOD WE DID SOME RESERCH BEFOR WE WALKED OUT THE DOOR... I WAS LOOKING TO BUY A BULLDOG PUP AND HE WAS SELLING IT FOR $500 FOR A MALE AND $600 FOR A FEMALE...I CAN'T BELIVE THAT $%*#!%* I AM SO PISSED..I AM GOING TO DRAG OUR EMAILS ON FOR AWHILE LONGER AND SEE WHAT HAPPENES FROM THERE..BUT WE DID BUY A PUG FROM A WONDERFUL FAMILY....OH AND HE WENT BY THE NAME OF PASTOR WILLIAMS AKA Tunde O Williams THATS THE EMAIL ADDRESS HE WENT BY AND THE FIRST EMAIL ADDRESS I ORIGINALLY EMAILED FIRST AND THAT PERSON SAID I am really sorry because i have just given out our last puppy and Would not have another puppy until begining of the next year 2007.


But l would say you're lucky to have mailed at this time because the same puppy has just been placed on adoption by one of my customer who went on a veterinarian work transfer with the West Africa veterinarian commission Nigeria ,West Africa. He is giving the puppy up for adoption because he cant take good care of the puppy due to is busy and tight state of work. All he wants is someone thats homely and with a good christian home to adopt this youngs and lovely human best friend. He will give you a full details,pictures of puppy and the fast shipping arrangements you are assured for the quality breed because the puppy has a Current vaccinations,Vet Exams.,Health cert. and guarantee (1yr),potty trained and home raised and socialized for tremendous attitude, excellent temperament, super trainabilityand has that special people pleasing personality.


He has an incredible high rate of learning with a delightful elegance of structure and a beautiful breed type and with CKC,AKC,and FCI Registries.He is offering the female puppy for $600 only and also offering the male puppy for $500 (shipping not included)if you are able to email him via:p.williams01@yahoo.com l am sure you would be lucky to have this puppy in your home,and if you have any question,we will be glad to provide you with answers.
Thanks.
Juliet
AND HER EMAIL ADDRESS IS
BUT WHAT I CAME UP WITH IS THOES TWO EMAIL ADDRESS IS THE SAME PERSON...BECAUSE I EMAILED JULIET FOR THE LAST TIME AND ASKED HER "I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THIS ISENT A SCAM AND DO YOU REALLY KNOW PASTOR WILLIAMS AND THANKS FOR THE REFFURAL" AND NOW I HAVENT GOTTON ANY EMAILS BACK FROM EITHER OF THEM SO I DO THINK BOTH EMAIL ADDRESS ARE ONE PERSON....JUST BECAREFUL EVERYONE!!!

OHHH AND I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS USEFUL TO ANYONE BUT THIS IS HIS ADDRESS WHERE I WAS SAPPOSE TO SEND THE MONEY ORDER TO
Name Of Reciever: Tunde O Williams
Address:Address........11 Church street,
City..........Maryland
State............Lagos
Country.........Nigeria
Zipcode.....23401
I DONT KNOW IF IT'S FAKE OR NOT, BUT HIT HIM FOR ME TO IF IT IS.....

All I have to say is watch out for this one as well. You have to agree to his terms before you see pictures of the puppies. Give me a break!

From: [mailto:rrosedave@yahoo.com]
Sent: November 1, 2006 2:10 PM
To: Sheila Willis
Subject: RE: Chihuahua Puppies for Adoption

I have their pictures,but I will send them to you as soon as e have agreed on the terms and conditions.

Sheila Willis wrote:
Do you have pictures of the pups? I live in Canada not US.

Sincerely,

Sheila Willis

________________________________________
From: [mailto:rrosedave@yahoo.com]
Sent: October 30, 2006 4:07 AM
To: Sheila Willis
Subject: RE: Chihuahua Puppies for Adoption

My own case is a different ball game.
I am really willing to give them away as soon as possible to whoever I conclude plans with.
If you are really ready to have them,just let me know so that I will give you the conditions,so that the puppies will leave here for USA as soon as possible.
Are you ready?

Sheila Willis wrote:
What are the stipulations? You say you will adopt them out for free? I would like to see pictures of the puppies. We have a loving home and already have a small pup that could use a friend, she is only 15weeks old. The pup would have to be a male as mine does not get along with the same sex. I had someone before try to get me to send them money for sending me a pup but I quickly found out that it was a scam. So if this is what this is please don’t waste my time as we do not have money to give away in order to receive nothing.

Sincerely,

Sheila Willis

________________________________________
From: [mailto:rrosedave@yahoo.com]
Sent: October 29, 2006 4:30 PM
To:
Subject: Chihuahua Puppies for Adoption

I am a mechanical engineer by profession posted to Bahrain (middle East) for another job.
The last time I visited States, I bought three wonderful chihuahua puppies, so
as I was sent to Bahrain for another Job, I went with the puppies.
I am willing to give them out for adoption for free to any family who can
take good care of them back in the states.
The weather here is very hot, so they can't survive here.
I just arrived here 4 days back, so it is still early for me to send them
back as soon as possible with some conditions attached to it.
Once I conclude plans with you I will ship them to you free of charge.
Please help me and also help these wonderful babies of mine.
I got your email address from a search engine,and if you are not in Usa or
Canada,please do not reply this email,because I will not send the puppies
to any other place apart from Canada or USA.
Get back to me if you are interested.
Thanks

Hi Cheryl,

That same person tried to scam me via email, even sending me pictures which I researched and found out they were scamming someone else at the same time too.

SHEILA,
YEA THIS GUY IS SO PATHETIC....I AM STILL DRAGGIGN MY EMAILS OUT WITH HIM STILL AND ASKED HIM IF HE KNEW ANYONE WANTING TO SELL PUGS AND HE SAID NO SORRY BUT THEN THE NEXT DAY HE EMAILED ME BACK AND SAID OH I FOUND SOMEONE FOR YOU SHE IS A REVERAND AND WILL SELL HER PUG TO YOU...WELL THE REV EMAILED ME AND SHE HAD THE SAAAAME SPELLING ERRORS AND GRAMMER AS HE DID......GO FIGURE!!!

Good Grief! This is getting BEYOND ridiculous! And, it is SO STUPID that they think if they throw in that they are being sold by a REVEREND or a PASTOR, that will make everyone think it is legit! Or, that they want the pups to go to a good CHRISTIAN home...they want the puppies to be raised in a certain religion, or what?!? Can't have any atheist dogs running the streets! (LOL) Pretty darn silly, if you ask me!
JoJo

This scam is still going on....just is being worded a little differently, but he's still puttin on the Christian front, "he is on a Christian mission and doesnt have time for the puppy." This exact picture was posted in the Windsor Star and the only way to contact the person is to email him at
I almost fell for it, but something close to this has happened to me before, so i was leery. I had me friend email him (after he was assuming i was getting the puppy) and he sent her the exact same email that I got - to the T! I also asked him to send me some pix of her, when he did, they were just small ones, when i asked him to send me bigger ones, he said he didnt have any more with him in Africa (lagos, NIgeria - same location). But if the dog is there with you and obvously you have a digital camera to put the first 3 pictures on the computer that you sent me, why could you not send me more? I got suspicious and did some investigating and came across this site. So I just wanted to let everyone know that he's still partaking in the scam - and probably getting away with it...(he just moves around to different countries) I guess we dont donate enough money to Africa, now they want to steal it.

YES THIS IS WAYYYY TO MUCH ALREADY!!! DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT CAN BE DONE??? BECAUSE IF NO ONE DOES INTERNET RESURCH THEN HOW CAN WE PROTECT EVERYONE??? OR EVEN POST IS IN MORE LOCATIONS ON THE NET?

I work at a newspaper and we have been receiving ads from these scammers for months. We have pretty much become experts in figuring out which ones are scams and which ones are legit. We do not run them.

Normally they seem to have yahoo.com email addresses. If there is a phone number, it is always out of state. If you do try to call it, it will not work. The price of the dog is always way under what it should be. We've seen these ads for bulldogs--all types, yorkies--all types, and maltese--all types.

I've emailed a few of these people just to see what their responses are. Their English is always very poor, it always has something to do with Africa (some of the email responses I received the person was being transferred to West Africa to take over the PR department of the UN..gotta admit, those people were fun to 'play' with for a while), they only accept Western Union and Money Grams.

It's not just one person. From an article I read about 6 months ago, it's usually groups of people. Where one person is the head of an organization whose job it is to go to every site they can and place ads. They use stolen credit cards to place them, if paymenet is required. Once they have a 'hit' and the person sends the money, some of that money stays with the person who placed the ad, and the rest goes to the person heading this part of the organization.

There's not much that can be done (unless you have sent the money, but no guarantee you'll get it back) except to make people aware. Spreading the word by email, mouth, wherever. Or, if you see the ads in the paper, or on a website, contact them immediately so they can have the ad pulled so others won't be scammed.

Right now it's dogs. But, I've seen it with cars, motorcycles, and I just read about horses...The scam will morph into something else at some point.

Thank goodness I found this website before proceeding any further with our potential puppy purchase. I obviously was going to get scammed as well. I found a site on Petfinder.com for bulldog puppies available for $400. The breeder was listed in my home state so we were excited. We received an e-mail from the supposed breeder that he had just had a Paster Charles McClung adopt 4 puppies and was then sent to West Africa on a mission and took the dogs with him. Unfortunately, he needed to find good homes in the US for the puppies because they were not doing well with the climate and he did not have enough time to dedicate to the puppies. We were supposed to Western Union him 400 and we would receive the puppies at our door the next day. That seemed a little fishy to me so I did some investigating and was lucky to find this site. The "Pastor" even called me at home when I started showing hesitation. I could barely understand him and when I asked questions regarding the puppies history, breeder, etc. he claimed he could not hear me. BULLDOG LOVERS BEWARE!! I TOLD MY DUAGHTER WHO WAS SO EXCITED TO GET A NEW BULLDOG PUPPY THAT IT SEEMED TOO GOOD TO BE TURE!!

I am not sure if they are all the same person, or possibly a group of different individuals, but the emails are a LOT the same. I have to admit, after falling for it, it was REALLY hard to trust ANY PUPPY ad on the email, even legit breeders. We got a Coton De Tulear from Portland, and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when it was at the Airport. (By the way, we got him from Brian Everett, website http://www.prideandjoypups.com...and I was REALLY impressed! He sells malteses, havanese, and cotons, for VERY reasonable prices.)
We were smarter this time, though, and we paid Money Order, took pictures (for proof), sent it "Certified" and "Expressed", so they would sign for it, etc. I doubt Brian had ANY IDEA how scared I was. It makes me mad that people doing these stupid scams scare potential buyers away from legitimate puppies being sold. Anyway, we have LOVED our little puppy! I am sold on the breed, and have NEVER had such a wonderful, loving, well behaved little pup! I am glad I dared to try again...just smarter this time, and NOT from Africa!!!
JoJo

Sorry, I put "...and" after the website I typed in, so here it is without that.

http://www.prideandjoypups.com

(A lot of you on this site, though, are talking about Bulldogs. I don't know any good bulldog breeders, but I am sure there are many good ones out there. Just make sure they aren't a Reverend, or Pastor from Africa, eh? LOL
JoJo

The puppy I got is the one pictured on the "About Us" page. SO cute! Named him Joey!
JoJo

I just fell for this same scam. This same Pastor James just this week ripped me off $500 for an english bulldog puppy that I was going to get for my fiance for Christmas. Everything was exactly the same as all of these other stories. It even started off from another person and she said that she had just sold her puppies to a missionary and he was needing to sell them to a person that could spend more time with them than he could. He even called me to try to get more money out of me for customs, but I couldn't hardly understand a single word he was saying. I'm so upset right now and I feel so stupid that I didn't figure this scam out until it was too late, especially after reading all of these emails. I really shouldn't have spent that much money in the first place and now I don't know how I'm even going to be able to get my fiance anything for Christmas. Any help on what to do or who to contact?

I work as a WU agent and a young lady came to me the other day to transfer £150 to Nigeria to buy a dog. I assured her the dog didn't exist but she insisted that a friend had already bought one and that the dog had been delivered. I tried to talk her out of it but she was adamant that she knew the vendor and that her friend had successfully concluded a purchase.

As I was about to press the "submit" key, I warned her again that, if anything went wrong, she'd never see her money again. She said this was okay.

After I'd sent the money, she then told me that she'd been in the day before and my colleague processed another identical transaction (identical apart from she didn't declare it was for an internet purchase so warning bells didn't ring with him). She said the recipient had contacted her to advise that the money had already been collected by an unknown person (who just happened to know the MTCN, test question and answer...) and they were launching a police investigation in Nigeria. Yeah, right. She was asked to send the money again, which is what she'd just done. Had I known that, I would not have processed the second transfer. She's now lost £300.

Oh my lands!
At least you tried to warn her!
I want to know the "Friend" that she claims received a puppy, because I haven't seen that happen YET!!!
JoJo

Melani,
I don't know if you will get the money back that you spent on your fiance' for the bulldog, and I am SO sorry. Here is some contact information that you might be able to use. I hope it helps. Good luck! And, congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

Western Union (Fraud): 1-800-448-1492
Western Union (Regular Line): 1-800-325-6000
Attorney General (Mark Shurtleff): 1-801-538-9600
National Fraud Info Center: 1-800-876-7060
FBI: http://www.ic3.com

Sincerely,
JoJo

Boy am I glad I found this site. I am talking to one of these losers right now. The email is: Helen Rowe [rowemisses@yahoo.com] as a warning to anyone else. Supposedly she lives in the U.S. but has been sent to Nigeria (SURPRISE) on a work transfer, as she says: " I am currently in Africa on a work transfer with the West Africa veterinarian commission Nigeria ,West Africa and i took the puppy along with me because there is nobody to take care of him back home." SHe wants $500 for an english bulldog that looks well enough bred to easily sell for $1,800. In her emails she also used the Christian appeal signing "God bless you" etc. She will ONLY accept Western Union and I thought that was suspicious as well. She gave me the information for her lawyer and asked that the money be sent there. I had a funny feeling about the whole thing and now I am glad that I did my research. I think it is very sad that there are people who would do things like this. I am going to confront her about the scam and I will probably never get a reply but at least she will know that people are wising up to crap like this.

Thanks again guys...you all just saved me $500.

Miss L,
I am SO GLAD you did your research as well! $500 saved is $500 earned! (Hee - Hee )
Jo Jo

Pastor williams almost got me!!!! i was going to send half of the money today. (we made a deal that i would send half before and after). He even told me not to rip him off!! anyways i also emailed petbreeder frist and she told me the same bs she tells everyone. I think they are the same person, cuz they always say advice at the end of there email!! its so annoying