As a reward to her advisory for raising more than $1,000 during the Jog-A-Thon Fundraiser week, Ms. Moskoff, our sixth grade Language Arts teacher, agreed to buy a class pet. After working at Flagstaff for almost ten years, Ms. Moskoff thought that it would be very fun for both her and the class to have a cute pet for everyone to love together. Ms. Moskoff found a website, hedgiestent.com, that looked more than legit. Professional, polished, filled with adorable and cuddly hedgehogs, Ms. Moskoff thought long and hard and eventually bought Cosmo! Cosmo was like a galaxy: large brown eyes, a swirl on his cute face. It all looked entirely genuine. So, Ms. Moskoff then bought a cage, food, a feeder, and water. Then… tragedy struck. 

She had it all set up in her basement –  awaiting the arrival of the brand new friend. She’d gotten a shipping message from the partner of the hedgehog website, it was all going as planned. Just days before the hedgehog was supposed to arrive, however, Ms. Moskoff got a very fishy email. This email was asking that she buy an electronic crate. This crate was supposedly needed for transport of the hedgehog – but the thing was that this crate was between $550 and $1700 and would be “100% Fully Refunded Back.” It was stated that she would only be renting the crate and would receive her money back… more than five times within a single paragraph. Luckily, Ms. Moskoff was able to detect that this is a scam and did not pay the huge sum of money that she would likely not get back… but this is a Local Scam, as well as a Local Tragedy. Ms. Moskoff’s students, and students throughout the school, had already come to love the little guy but… he was fake. 

Ms. Moskoff has opened a case with the police to investigate this crime but the chances are that she will not get her money back for the hedgehog itself. She is currently on the lookout for a new friend, this time with a more credible source. We all wish her luck… and hope that soon we’ll all have a brand new friend, for real this time. 

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT BUY FROM hedgiestent.com!