New scam alert: Families searching for lost pets targeted
Caller says dog or cat has been found, but needs emergency surgery
“Lost pet. Help find Fido!”
I’m sure you’ve seen signs like that taped on telephone polls, plastered all over bulletin boards at coffee shops, maybe even popped into your mailbox. There’s just something about lost pet signs that always make my heart sink. I immediately picture a family, worried sick, a young boy without his bedtime companion … and a frightened animal, shivering and hungry under a bridge. Or worse. If you’ve ever lost a pet, even for a few minutes, you know the panic that sets in.
This week's Perfect Scam podcast is about a new, absolutely diabolical scam involving panicked families who are searching for a lost pet. I first started spotting reports about it right around New Year's. But in recent weeks, warnings have arrived from all over the country, so I know this one is "in the wild."
I also know because we talked with Chloe Patera this week. Chloe's mom had a bad stroke in December, and Chloe temporarily moved from Georgia to Florida to help with her mom's recovery. She brought her dog with her, and in the resulting chaos, mom's cat Percy went missing. After posting on all the lost pet forums, Chloe got a call one night from a number showing it was the Tampa Bay Humane Society. The caller said Percy had been found, but he'd been hit by a car and needed emergency surgery. Full of relief that her mom's cuddle partner had been found, but terror that the cat might not survive, Chloe sent $2,100 via PayPal to the caller.
But the caller was a criminal. Her $2,100 had been stolen and Percy was still missing.
Criminals work hard to get their victims in heightened emotional states, and squeeze them with time pressure. As we often point out on The Perfect Scam, the right combination of pressure and panic will make anyone vulnerable. In this case, as Chloe told me, "they picked the perfect person for the perfect scam."
This scam is diabolical and cruel because it preys on people who are already in a desperate situation. But it's effective for another reason. Generally we advise people to limit the information they share about themselves online, or anywhere. Any public nugget can help a criminal weave a persuasive story. But in the case of a lost pet, people are encouraged to share as much as possible, as widely as possible. On telephone poles. On Facebook groups. On message boards. And to share highly detailed information like, “Fido has a brown marking on his back left foot!" And, of course, to share their contact information. That kind of detail is incredibly useful to criminals looking to concoct a believable narrative. Combine that with call spoofing -- criminals' calls can arrive with callerID indicating "Humane Society" -- and you've got for a recipe for fraud.
I hope you'll listen to today's story, but at least share this message with your pet-loving friends. Even if it seems like you're getting a call you have prayed for, always double-check. Whenever the phone rings and it's a surprise, hang up and call back the veterinarian or shelter or hospital at a number you know is valid.
Here's a partial transcript of this week's episode:
--------------------------PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT-------------------------------
[00:15:39] Chloe Patera: Yeah, but you know, one or two days wasn't a big, like it was a big deal, but it wasn't serious enough to concern my sick mother in the hospital, you know. So once it hit day three or four, we were like, "Hey, we can't find Percy." And I think she even said, "Oh, you know, he's probably just out playing. And he's probably confused because you know, Chloe's here with her dog and I'm not there, so you know, he's probably just really confused and he's probably just waiting for things to go back to normal." And that sounded completely logical to me, it sounded logical to my dad, you know, it made sense.
[00:16:19] Bob: Percy's home life had been really disrupted. Adding to the family misery if their 16-year-old black Labrador, Merlin, well he had been pretty sick and now he passes away, so Chloe tries to enlist Mom in the hunt for Percy.
[00:16:36] Chloe Patera: We were like, you know, when Mom comes home, maybe Percy will hear her voice and be like, oh, Mom's home, and you know come back, because that was very much so her cat. But, you know, time just kept going on and I have, I would have my mom on speakerphone and I would have her call for, for Percy, and she would call for him and I was hoping, I was like oh, maybe he'll show up, maybe he'll show up. Nothing. Something didn't feel right, you know, so I said to my mom, I was like, "What are we going to do if Percy doesn't come back?" And she was like, "I don't know." She was like, "We just have to keep faith and pray that he comes home." And I was like, "Yeah, I know. I pray every night that he comes home."
[00:17:23] Bob: They just have to pray Percy comes home. Then one night, it feels like those prayers have been answered.
[00:17:32] Chloe Patera: Yeah. So it was about, it was about 7:30 or 8 o'clock at night. And I got a call and it said, "Tampa Bay Humane Society." So I answered the phone, and then a man said to me, "Hi, we're looking for either Grace Hefez or Chloe Hefez." And I was like, whoa, I was like that's my maiden name. I was like, I don't get called by my maiden name, you know, unless it's my one bank account that I left in my maiden name. And I was like, "Yes," I was like, "Hi, how can I help you?" They were like, "Hi, we tried reaching Grace Hefez, but we didn't have luck." I was like, "Yeah, my Mom was in, that's my mom. She's in the hospital, um, so that would explain," I was like, "Can I help you?" And they said, "Well, are you Chloe Hefez?" I said, "Yes," I said, "What can I do, do for you?" And they said, "We have an orange cat here, microchipped by the name Percy, and he has been just surrendered to us by police, by local law enforcement, and he was hit by a car, and he has terrible damage," sorry.... oh...
[00:18:43] Bob: That's fine. I'm sure this is painful to go through.
[00:18:45] Chloe Patera: Sorry, yeah. I know. So the man on the other end of the phone told me, "Hi, we have a cat, an orange cat, uh, by the name of..." Sorry, this is hard. So the man on the other end of the line says, "Local law enforcement has just brought an orange cat in that's registered under the name Percy to you guys, and he has been hit by a car and he's sustained injuries that are potentially life threatening to his lower back as well as his legs." And first thing I do is one, I scream out to my dad who has gone to the other end of the house. I'm like, "They have Percy!" And my dad comes running out and he's like, "What, what, what?" And I’m pretty sure the man was talking as I'm like screaming, "They've got Percy, they've got Percy."
[00:19:40] Bob: They've got Percy. Those prayers have been answered, but the news isn't all joy.
[00:19:47] Chloe Patera: I remember I just, I, I threw my phone to my dad. I said, "I'm calling Mom." And I took his phone and I called Mom, I was like, "Mom, they have Percy, he's been hit by a car, but they say he's going to be okay; he just needs surgery." And then my dad comes in, and he's like, "Chloe, they're asking for $2000." And I was like, "Well, you know, we have to pay it." I was like, "There's no other, you know your baby is hurt." This animal is part of your family. You do for them what you would do for a human, you know?
[00:20:17] Bob: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:19] Bob: Percy needs surgery, and the vet needs $2000 immediately. That's a lot of money, but Mom is going to be so happy to have Percy back.
[00:20:31] Chloe Patera: And so immediate--, we switched phones. So my dad is talking to my mom now, and I'm talking to the man on the phone. And you know I, I had an emergency with one of my cats at one point, and we were able to pay, 'cause it, it, that emergency that I had with my own cat was close to $2000, and the way we made it work was through something called Scratch Pay. So I said, you know assuming because pretty much every veterinarian in the country works with either Care Credit or Scratch Pay. So I said to the man on the phone, I said, "Okay," I was like, "Yeah, yeah, um, well we want him to get better. We want things to be okay." We were, and I said, "But $2000, you know, is a lot of money." I think they originally wanted like $2500. I was like, "But it's, you know, it's not an issue. We will get the money to you." I said, "Can we please work something out via Scratch Pay or Care Credit?" And they were like, "I'm so sorry, we don't work with third party payment plans." And I was like, in my brain I think I was like, oh that's a little weird, but at the same time I was like, oh, but it's the Humane Society, so maybe they just do things a little differently because it's not a traditional veterinarian's office. And they said, "But you know, if you can pay us right now, we will go ahead and take some sort of percentage off." I can't even remember what the percentage was. And it'll bring your total to $2100 and like 16 cents, I think. And I looked at my dad, my dad looked at me, and we're like, you know, Percy, he's hurt, you know we don't want to think about him being hurt. We want him to be okay, and so we said okay. We said, "Okay, how do we get the money to you?" And they said, "Okay," they said, "Well we can do uh PayPal." That kind of made sense in a way. It, it did kind of make sense because you know businesses use PayPal to do things online, so that, that made sense. So like in my head I was like, okay, that checks out. I was like, okay, that sounds great. And so then it comes to sending the money over. They say, "It has to be sent friends and family." And alarm bells kind of start going off in my brain, but there's so much emotion that it almost drowned out those alarm bells. And it, it just, it, like I think in my gut I knew something wasn't right, but I was so, there were so many emotions; you know my mom's in the hospital, the family dog has just passed away, I desperately want Percy to come home, you know, I don't want to think about him in pain, so it's like, I'll do whatever it is that you want me to do. And if that means that I have to send it Friends and Family instead of the PayPal Goods and Services, then I'm going to do it. And we sent it.
[00:23:29] Bob: So they sent the money and the man on the other end of the line assures Chloe that Percy will be in surgery shortly.
[00:23:35] Chloe Patera: He was like, "Let me keep you on the line so that I can just make sure that things go through." And I can hear this man typing. He's typing, so it all is so legit. And he said, "Okay," he said, "now while the payment is processing," he said, "I can see that it's processing," he said, "I just want to fill you in on what's going to happen." He said, "I'm going to place you on a brief hold and I'm going to let our veterinarian know that you have paid and they're going to start the surgery immediately." And I was legitimately put on hold by this man. And he took the time to put me on hold for a minimum of five minutes. And that was him "telling the veterinarian that it was a go for surgery because we had sent our payment." He comes back on the phone and says, "Okay, I've let the doctor know that your payment has been sent, and they're starting surgery now." He said, "He's going to put under anesthesia and they're going to, they're going to go ahead and fix him. He could potentially be paralyzed from this, but they're going to do everything in their power to make sure that he's okay." And so okay. And so we're still talking to him and he says, "Now I just need to get a few more things put together." He said, "Can I please have your email?" I said, "Absolutely." I gave him my email. He said, "Now the surgery is going to take upwards of three hours. I know it's late. Is it okay for us to give you a call when the surgery is done?" And simultaneously, my dad and I both say, "Yes." Because I have the man on speakerphone. And he says, "Okay," he says, "I just want you to know that it could be like 1 or 2 in the morning that you get the call." And we were like, "That's fine. We don't mind." He's, and so the person, the man on the other line says, "Okay, perfect." He said, "Now Chloe, I'm going to send you a receipt to your email. It's going to take me about 30 minutes to generate the receipt and it will tell you everything that's being done with his surgery." And I said, "Great." I said, "No problem at all." And so he says to us, he says, "Well thank you," he says, um, "and we'll do everything in our power, you know, to help Percy, and we'll see you tomorrow when you come and pick him up." And I said, "Okay, thank you so much."
[00:25:58] Bob: After that flurry of activity, and just think about what this family has been through for the past few weeks, well finally there's a moment to take a breath.
[00:26:07] Chloe Patera: And so I sit down on the couch, and I kind of, I breathe a sigh of relief, but as I breathe the sigh of relief, my dad and I kind of exchange looks at each other like, I don't know if this is right. And so I'm trying to stay positive. My dad is saying something doesn't smell right about this. And I'm like, let's just be positive, maybe they have to do things a little differently because it's after hours and stuff, and it's like okay, you know, we'll do that. And so I'm still keeping faith that I'm going to get this email detailing what is going on in, in Percy's surgery and our receipt and everything, and so that half hour passes and I'm like, "Hey, Dad, I haven't gotten, you know, that email yet." And he's like, "Okay." And then an hour passes and still no email. Two hours pass, no email, no phone call.
[00:27:08] Bob: Two hours, three hours, morning comes; no email, no phone call, no news about Percy. And now they're getting really scared. And on the other side of town, Regan Blessinger is just getting to work. She's the Marketing and Content Manager for the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. And only a few weeks earlier her office had received a really odd phone call from a different Tampa area resident who was also searching for a lost pet.
[00:27:39] Regan Blessinger: Someone called our shelter manager and was like oh freaking out, like you have my dog, and we looked it up and there was no history of that dog ever being at the Humane Society of Tampa Bay. So there are some other shelters in the area, so we were like maybe those other shelters have them. And they were really, really upset, and through digging and then talking to those other shelters, we realized that this just was a ruse, that nobody had this animal.
[00:28:12] Bob: That person desperately searching for their lost dog had received a call from someone claiming to be from the Tampa Humane Society claiming to have found the dog and claiming the dog needed expensive surgery. Instead of paying, the person had called the Humane Society directly.
[00:28:31] Bob: So this person who called, first of all, they're upset because they're missing their animal, right?
[00:28:34] Regan Blessinger: Oh, yeah, of course this like a very vulnerable position, so you're missing your animal, you get a call from a shelter from a number; it has the name. You see that, and then they kind of hold your pet hostage. There's a lot to it and you can imagine like the emotions going through thinking that, oh my gosh, you have my pet, and then oh, but I have to pay a bunch of money and so that was our first clue into something was happening.
[00:29:01] Bob: Within a few days Regan notices that shelters around the country are getting calls like this from desperate pet owners who say someone tried to get them to send thousands of dollars for surgery on their missing pet who had been found. But it's a scam. And warnings go up all around the country.
[00:29:20] Regan Blessinger: So we start to see other shelters post things saying that there's a scam going on. And the furthest shelter I know of is San Diego Humane Society. They also had this same thing happen. And it, it kind of the same script. Of course, this was like two months ago, so we didn't exactly know what the script was now. Now we do, and I mean as far as I know, every shelter in the Tampa Bay area has gone through this, and then shelters in almost every other state have gone through this exact same thing.