This message is circulating Facebook pages claiming that a man called Ian P Feely is looking for litters of kittens and puppies to feed to his pet snake.

The message is actually a vulgar joke and should not be taken seriously. Firstly the name Ian P Feely is clearly a variation on the popular joke name I. P. Freely. The likelihood is that the surname was incorrectly copied at some point before the message went viral.

Secondly, whilst we won`t go into too much detail on the specifics of the joke, you could probably work it out by thinking of an alternative word for "kittens" and decipher what the author of the message actually means when he uses the [presumed] metaphor "python".

Thirdly, the message fails to disclose any kind of location, so even if it were true it would still be essentially useless.

Selling pets on the Internet to people who you do not know is never advised because sick people do use the Internet and thus it is dangerous for the animals, and that fact should be passed between pet owners. However it is not helpful to circulate these silly messages under the guise of warnings.


The Internet, and social networking sites like Facebook, are perfect platforms for spreading untruths, misinformation, rumor and propaganda. Thousands of inaccurate, exaggerated, deceptive or just plain false messages are circulated every single day.

For the anti-scam community to successfully tackle this plethora of false rumours, it is important that anyone who uses the Internet be able to identify false rumours and fully understands the possible consequences of spreading false information.

We have a two part blog post that helps provide this information. Part 1 deals with how to spot and debunk Internet rumours and Part 2 deals with the reasons why you should never circulate false information.

Additionally if you have fallen for this rumour or have Facebook friends that have, you can join our growing Facebook page here.