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Japanese Poodle Scam Revealed as Hoax
Status: Hoax
The Japanese poodle scam - wherein thousands of gullible buyers were sold lambs instead of the dogs they were expecting - was first reported in UK Sun newspaper. The story went that rich women were buying cut-price poodles from a company named Poodles For Pets, and were astonished to find later that they were sheep.The story itself was immediately dubious (aside from being in The Sun, which tends to be somewhat lax in the fact-checking department), when you consider snippets like:
The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.
She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.
Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.
One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.
She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.
Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.
One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.
The story unravelled when police in Sapporo, where the company was claimed to be based, said they had never heard of the scam. The talk-show story was not as it seemed, either. It appears that Kawakami had told a story about a lamb being sold instead of a poodle. However, she'd said that it had happened to a friend of hers.
It seems that nobody had heard of the scam - it hadn't been reported in any Japanese newspapers.
The final nail in the coffin? The original article claims that the scam "capitalised on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like."
In fact, Sapporo has had a sheep farm since 1848.
Forum thread here.
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Categories: Animals, Business/Finance, Celebrities, Folklore/Tall Tales Posted by Flora on Wed May 02, 2007 |
Comments (5) |
| More from the Hoax Museum Archives: | |||
Oh, come on. It's true that most Japanese people live in cities, but even we city folk are up on the differences between sheep and dogs.
Telling sheep from goats, on the other hand, sometimes stumps us. I once heard a co-worker say, in all seriousness, that a sheep is the same thing as a goat.
Posted by Big Gary in Freedonia, Texas on Sun May 06, 2007 at 01:37 PM
Telling sheep from goats, on the other hand, sometimes stumps us. I once heard a co-worker say, in all seriousness, that a sheep is the same thing as a goat.
It just occurred to me that (I think) Sapporo is where Haruki Murakami's 'Wild Sheep Chase' is (partly) set. Could this hoax originally have been some kind of off-the-wall tribute? Probably not, I guess.
Posted by outeast on Mon May 07, 2007 at 02:15 AM
Here in NZ we have 60 million sheep.
We recieve about 20 000 Japanese visitors a year, about 10% for weddings.
I am now wondering what the hell these people think we have all those poodles in the fields for . . .
Posted by DFStuckey in Auckland, New Zealand on Mon Jun 04, 2007 at 11:41 PM
We recieve about 20 000 Japanese visitors a year, about 10% for weddings.
I am now wondering what the hell these people think we have all those poodles in the fields for . . .
Hehghphsplutter. Blast, coffee on my keyboard again, damn you DFStuckey.
Posted by outeast in Prague, Czech Rep on Tue Jun 05, 2007 at 02:11 AM
Amazing. To think that that many people actually believed in a story such as this. I have 2 poodles myself and I have seen both poodle pups and young sheep and there is no way that anybody could mix the two. It's just impossible.
Posted by Emily Burton in London on Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 07:15 AM
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