¡¹Africa liar ,We lost 261USD ¡¹

It's simple: the actual owner of the email the scammer hijacked was obviously a good dealer so they trusted him. An identity theft case more then anything.

There are 2 scenarios to be ripped off:

1. Initially honest dealer, several perfect orders then the last one contains crappy stuff (moulded/B quality/whatever) or never comes. The excuses are pathetic: "I have a family you know..."
There are probably many factors causing this; most of the time the dealer is either not serious or he does it on purpose.
2. Downright scammer, does not have any insects at all.


I understand kingdomofbeetle are serious people; the african beetles they sell are a sought after product so no wonder they take high risks in buying the live specimens. And unfortunately when dealing with African/Peruvian people the very few that are serious ask prices in the higher, sometimes absurd range. The rest are simply put crooks.

This is why a good, cheap dealer would worth his weight in gold. These usually don't have Internet access, or they don't speak English. You'll never see their ads here. Most of them are "formed" by large wholesellers, who travel often.


While at it, I know an interesting story: a French went to some African country and trained a young guy at the country side to catch insects. They did this for 2 weeks. This young guy was paid in those two weeks with more he could have possible make in maybe 3 months of hard labour.
Before departing, the French set up everything: he completed several forms at the post office and paid (bribed?) the worker to send the parcels, since the young insect hunter wasn't able to write. He also paid upfront the young hunter for the next two weeks (so he made the equivalent of 6 months in local income), with his word that he will send the package "for sure". He did all he could to insure constant packages. He then returned to Europe.

As the story goes, 2 months later there was no package yet. A simple call at the post office cleared up the things: the young never caught any more insects, but insted he spent all the money on "parties" with the friends and returned to the regular life.

This shows how these people really are: with no vision of future at all; they are like "hit and run" kind of people.

An education issue I guess.