03/05/2026
📢📢📢‼️‼️‼️
🚨🚨 EVERYONE 🚨🚨
Recently we have been made aware of two separate situations to which a scammer has used our organization’s name to scam people with lost pets for money. Once, our phone number was spoofed, and made this situation even more believable to the pet owner. Lost pets can make our emotions run high, and the people behind the scam, use that to their advantage.
1. The scam starts with someone claiming to be a representative of our organization, but claims to be apart of our emergency clinic. Please note that we are simply an animal shelter/sanctuary. We do not have an onsite veterinary clinic, and we use the same resources for veterinary care as the public.
2. Pet owners are then told that their lost pet has been tragically injured, and needs critical emergency care. They even go as far as using the address of our local emergency clinic. Payment is demanded for immediate treatment of the pet. They are even demanding specific amounts of money. Then offering to receive that money via applications such as PayPal, cash app etc. Please note that most veterinary clinics do not accept payment via phone call. Nor would they ask you to use any of these payment applications.
3. If you do not recognize the number, or it is not a local number that Google affiliates with a business, it’s most likely a scam. In the event that a business phone number has been spoofed for use in a scam, we recommend you hang up then call that business back for confirmation. You can also reach out to use directly on social media for assistance or further information.
4. As sad as it is to make this post, we also want to add that sharing your personal info on social media makes you a target for these types of scams. It’s very disheartening, and upsets us to know that something such as a phone number for a lost pet is enough to allow things like this to happen. AI generated images are even being used from photos attached to the lost pet post, and are being used as part of the scam.
Please make sure your pets microchip information is current, or that their collar/tag information is up to date. If your pet is not microchipped or tagged, we would recommend looking into doing so. That is a positive identifier in situations where pets are lost/found and even injured.
We are terribly sorry for this, and have looked into solutions to prevent this. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do other than spread awareness to the matter. We appreciate your attention, and hope that this is eventually handled.
