My husband and I were looking for a special kitten to add to our family. We had one for 17 years that we had to put down due to terminal illness not long after our daughter was born. 3 years later, our daughter is simply in love with cats, from Halloween costumes, to Aristocats (the movie) and countless stuffed versions in her bed every night. So, we thought it was time to bring one back into our family.
After a telephone conversation with Wendi, we drove up to visit one particular kitten the very next day because she told us how many other people were interested in him. We had a nice conversation and played with multiple cats and were drawn to that one in particular, which apparently had someone willing to purchase him from Northern CA if we didn't. My daughter was in heaven, but we also noticed she was a bit rough and jumpy around them (as toddlers can be...). My husband took her outside to get some fresh air and gave me the green light to follow through on purchasing a kitten. So, I stayed inside with Wendi and signed a contract and gave her $1,000 deposit (half the total cost of the kitten). The kitten was not quite ready to come home with us, and Wendi was going to be in Hawaii for a month, during the time that he could. So, it was about 5-6 weeks out before she would release him.
My husband instantly had some trepidations about my daughter's behavior around the kittens, and when we got home we did further research online about introducing kittens into a family with a toddler. Sadly, the more we read, we found out that toddlers and kittens can spell out a bad situation for the kitten's development. We decided we needed to call Wendi back as soon as possible, and let her know that we decided it best to wait another year or two before bringing one of her kittens into our family. We let her know ASAP so she could sell the kitten to one of the many other people interested.
Of course our daughter was pretty heartbroken, but Wendi understood and ultimately agreed that she would reimburse us the $1,000 once she sold the kitten to another party. We were very thankful and felt that she understood our intentions were good, and we knew that we would come back to Fancy Friends and buy a kitten when the time was right. We gave her our address to send the check and stood by. The kitten was immediately placed back on the Fancy Friends website, then after a few days removed. We assumed it had sold very quickly, but knew that Wendi was going to Hawaii, so gave her some time to get the check out to us.
After 3 months of no check and not hearing a word from Wendi we reached out to her. She only then informed us that she decided to trade the kitten with a cat breeder friend instead of selling the kitten outright and had already used our deposit to purchase another kitten from Germany, and wouldn't be reimbursing our $1,000. She threw out a couple options to placate us after we were shocked by her actions, including applying the deposit for a kitten in the future, but we were just so tainted by her deceptive behavior we couldn't see trusting her to follow two years from now, nor could we see giving her another $1000.
Of course, she had no legal obligation to pay us back the money (we did sign a contract), but she also told us (in a text) that she fully intended to pay us back the $1,000. And AFTER 3 MONTHS of us looking in the mailbox for a check, she acts as if trading him is some kind of loophole? Why didn't she communicate that to us BEFORE she made the trade? Or communicate with us AT ALL?
Clearly she set up a win win for herself, and as far as I'm concerned she basically made $1,000 for talking to our family briefly for one afternoon. She showed very poor character and business practice by misleading us with her intentions, even though the entire reason we backed out was for the sake of the kitten.
Needless to say, we will not be adopting a kitten from Wendi in the future! read more