Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Saturday, August 08, 2015

Scam Alert Involving Pets

Folks we need to pass along a warning. This has happened to many other lost and found pet sites but today is a first for us and sadly there are awful people out there attempting to extort money by playing on the sympathies of a distraught owner. Anyone can Google a person to get their contact info and unfortunately there are many scams of this nature out there. You already know that for years we have operated as a no-cost, volunteer community organization. No one has ever been charged for a single thing we have provided.
-
Today one of the owners of a pet received a call from the phone number 213-221-1099. The caller, a female with a foreign accent,
identified herself as Lost Pet PR and stated they had found his dog. This CLEARLY SCREAMS SCAM but in some circumstances and for someone holding out hope, such a tactic could lure in an unsuspecting victim.


The caller requested that this owner send money to cover "the vet cost and the pound fees so that they could make arrangements for the dog to be picked up". We are sick over the idea that someone would do this but it happens widely. Please be aware and just as with any other phone solicitation, ask for their number to call them back, and it's likely to end right there by calling their bluff.
-
NOTE: we googled the phone number and came up with a number of matches for similar phone calls made. Apparently the caller has identified themselves as a variety of missing pet resources. July 16th our friends at Pet FBI Ohio posted this warning athttps://www.facebook.com/petfbi.org/posts/870029323032363

At this site several people have posted complaints about this phone number, all for the same reason - http://findwhocallsyou.com/2132211099

"Same story. I had a lost pet report online and they used that to get to me. He told me to go to his website and blah blah blah.. I stopped listening." Posted on 07 Aug 2015

"They used my lost dogs to solicite helping me for a fee but they live in CA how wrong is that" Posted on 07 Aug 2015

-

Thank you for sharing.

Sincerely, Lost Pet PR
https://www.facebook.com/LostPetPR

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok...all you animal lovers...call the number and give them a piece of your mind. Have some fun with it.

Anonymous said...

Ok...so I called the # and hung up before they answered. They called me back and I said " you found my dog?" "Yes" they replied "but he is in bad shape and urgently in need of medical attention. We need your permission to treat him and a credit card". That's when I said to them "really? That's amazing because my dog is laying here next to me you low life garbage". What a shock that they hung up.

Anonymous said...

I wish the police put as much effort into cracking down on this type of crime as they do on drugs.

Anonymous said...

They won't call my number twice. My (non-existent) dog is a carrier of hyperchronoscabilitis. I don't want him back, do you know what that is? Oh my god, you got him, you didn't touch him did you??