Parrot con costs man $4,000

A pensioner living in the Moscow region was conned out of 114,000 rubles (3,900) after he was told he could receive an Ara parrot free of charge, police said on Thursday. The 62-year-old man, who resides in the city of Korolyov outside Moscow, applied in February for an online message offering the parrot for free, police said in a statement. The only condition was a fee of 12,000 rubles for shipment of the bird from Poland, the report said. The parrot’s native habitat is Central and South America. The man, whose name was withheld, paid the delivery fee despite the fact that the payment information specified “some other country than Poland” as the recipient’s residence, police said, without elaborating. However, instead of the parrot, the man received a stream of excuses and additional charges, including for insurance, transportation cage, veterinarian services and even payment for eggs that the bird allegedly laid in the meantime. In the end, the man never received his parrot and reported the story to the police, which launched a check to identify the alleged con artists.