'It's awful': Uptick in scams targeting families with lost pets
MILWAUKEE COUNTY, Wis. (CBS 58) -- A recent uptick in scams targeting families who have lost their pets is making it difficult for them to find their furry friends.
"It's awful," said Jennifer Anderson, who dog is missing dog "It's heartbreaking because I miss her so much."
Anderson says her dog Lucy went missing in Kenosha on August 31.
Since then, she's been worried sick about her pup, sending out posters and searching night and day. So, when she got a text from someone claiming to have her dog, she was filled with hope, that’s until she realized it was a scam.
"To message someone and say you have their loved one and then you want to return them as a falsity is awful," said Anderson.
She says in the 11 days her dog has been missing, she's had three different numbers try and scam her, all claiming to have her dog and demanding money. She says some have gone as far as sending fake edited pictures of her dog.
"It's heartbreaking," said Anderson. "It's absolutely heartbreaking and people need to be aware because they can make it look so real. They made my Lucy look so real."
Mikayla Johnson, whose dog Jax also went missing in Kenosha on the same day as Anderson's, says she too has been scammed multiple times.
"It's definitely heartbreaking," said Johnson. "Each text we get are full of hope someone might have them and then we get let down because it's just a scam or they are just pranking us and then we lose that hope all over again."
Kristen Wilson, the executive director of Billy's Posse who helps find lost dogs says, every family they work with has at least one scammer reach out. She says the problem is only getting worse as scammers get more aggressive in their tactics.
"It makes me angry to see that they are going through that and that people are just exploiting people in their darkest hours," said Wilson. "There are no bounds to these scammers, they don’t care who they hurt."
Wilson says it's important for families to stay vigilant and if a family is ever questioning if a person is legit, they can contact their organization for help.
Both Lucy and Jax are still missing, if you see them contact Billy's Posse.