INTERVENTION by the Wiltshire Times has helped a disabled Trowbridge woman recover some of the £200 she paid out to a seller who then failed to hand over a puppy.

Rose May, 58, was left heartbroken after she paid £200 to a woman living hear her for a Jack Russell puppy - only to be told it had been given to someone else.

She contacted the paper after she felt she had failed to get any help from Wiltshire Police, wanting to warn other people thinking of buying puppies to keep them company in lockdown to take care and avoid being scammed.

Mrs May and her daughter Emily said they had handed over a £50 deposit and then two further payments of £100 and £50 - and even got a chance to cuddle the puppy.

But after taking the money in early December, the seller cruelly texted her to say the puppy had gone.

Mrs May said: “I got weird text messages saying the puppy is gone, so I thought ‘oh no he’s dead’.

“I went round to her house but the puppy was still there and she said ‘don’t worry love the puppy is yours’.

“So I went away happy and then I received more texts saying uncertain things about the puppy, even though she already had my money, so I cried all day.

“Then two days later I get a text from her saying ‘sorry he’s gone and is happy in his new home’, even though we had met the puppy several times and fell in love with him. Now I don’t have £200 and no puppy either.”

Mrs May knocked on the woman’s front door, as she lives not far from their home on Woolpack Meadows in the Longfield area of Trowbridge, several times to ask for her money back.

She said: “I asked for my money back and first she said she would pay it back at £5 a week and then she started sending me abusive messages.

“I still haven’t got the puppy and she’s refusing to pay back the money I have given her.”

Both Mrs May and Emily then claim the woman sent abusive text messages to them and told them to stop posting notes and knocking on her door, before threatening to report them for harassment.

On Tuesday when the Wiltshire Times called at the house, a woman answered the door briefly but quickly slammed it shut when our reporter identified himself, refusing to answer any questions.

The May family say she has since been in touch and offered £30 cash, with a promise to pay £30 a week every Thursday until the debt is cleared.

Emily said: “Thank you very much. She has given us £30, no apology though.”

Mrs May is partially disabled, has poor eyesight and diabetes and has suffered from deep vein thrombosis.

She said she contacted Wiltshire Police after handing over the money for the puppy and then not receiving her new pet, but a police spokesman said they could find no trace of her complaint.

They added: “If she has not officially called us via 101 then she needs to do this to report the fraud/crime and then we can take it from there.”