Hi yall,
I’m not sure if this is the best categories to post in, forgive my ignorance if they are not.
While my husband and I love watching the show, we talked about doing our part but apart from holding scammers on the line pretending to participate didn’t get into the weeds on how to scam bait.
Recently we’ve had a few incidents where I’m even contemplating doing a career switch to scam baiting. Haha… no but maybe. I spend my spare hours trying to filter through the real/fake “we’ve found your dog” posts, calls, texts, profiles, etc.
Backstory:
My husband is a Military Veteran and has a service dog Lilith (currently missing) to help him through some non-combat related trauma. We just moved to our house in November, we haven’t lived in our own house before. Lilith went missing on 01/01/2023 around 8pm. She’s been with him for about the last 6 years. She knows exactly when he needs her and catches him before he has an attack.
Since then we have posted on every website for lost/found pets I could find. Just about every local and State (even some Federal ones) Facebook group for Lost, found, rehoming, free, etc pets. My feed is all animals looking, finding or pending homes.
While I didn’t imagine it was a place that scammers went to catch people off guard - there are so many.
From prank calls in the middle of the night telling us they have our dog and how much we would pay to get her back to text and social media messages asking to confirm a code on Google that we are the owner.
I see at least a dozen posts a day from other people who lost their pets saying someone contacted them saying they have their dog and need confirmation or payment before they’ll return them or some variation of this statement. Many point out they got scammed and warning others. But there are so many phone numbers and profiles that its hard to work through them all.
I want to learn how to find, assess and report these scammers in better ways. Some I’ve been able to track down with Radaris, Spokeo etc - but I can imagine that these could be dummy accounts or hacked phone numbers (idk if that’s a thing). The K9 tracking scammers that got us for $300 (at this point we consider it a gift - they won’t get us again) have been reported to the Federal Fraud report website. I know nothing specific will happen to help our case, but I hope it helps with finding the patterns and bringing down scam rings like that one. That scam looked to be a combination of overseas scammers and local scammers.
Where should I start?
I’m very ready and willing to learn - honestly if I can be part of the reason that someone thinks twice before trying to scam people who are already distressed I am 1000000% down.
We’re still hopeful we’ll find Lilith - No local agency (TxDot, City Maintenance, or shelter) has contacted us indicating that she was picked up deceased - she is chipped. Given that Texas is a garbage state when it comes to Pet legislation- people believe they can rehome dogs without getting them scanned, and there is lots of under ground dog fighting - I worry that she’s being mistreated. My husband likes to think someone just decided to keep her and is giving her a warm caring home. Both could be true.
We’ve heard a lot of stories of dogs turning up months even years after being lost in Texas… people eventually drop them off the same way they picked them up. I don’t know if anyone can help with finding lost pets - I know this isn’t the forum for it.
Thanks in advance.
