The Better Business Bureau is warning pet owners about an increase in lost-pet scams. In 2022, the BBB received 680 pet scams reported to its Scam Tracker. By 2024, that number had increased to 2,278.<\/p>\n
When Cristina Teehan\u2019s dog, Coco, escaped from home, she was bombarded with messages from scammers claiming they had found Coco but demanding money for the dog\u2019s return.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy take advantage of people who are already upset?\u201d Teehan said. \u201cPeople who are already going through so much?\u201d<\/p>\n
News 12 first spoke with Teehan in 2022. Since then, not only have these scams increased dramatically, but the BBB and Federal Trade Commission say scammers are also using AI to generate realistic images and videos that make it appear more convincing that they have someone\u2019s pet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a heartbreaker because pets, you know, we love our pets,\u201d said Clair Rosenzweig of the Better Business Bureau. \u201cAnd if you lose your pet or if somebody says that it\u2019s been stolen, you\u2019ll do anything, it seems, you know, to get that pet back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rosenzweig said pet owners should never pay someone claiming to have their animal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs much as you want that pet back,\u201d Rosenzweig said, \u201cdo not send them money by wire, by gift card, any which way, because they don\u2019t have your pet.\u201d<\/p>\n
If someone asks to be paid through a wire transfer, cryptocurrency or gift cards, it can be much harder to get your money back.<\/p>\n
The BBB also recommends tagging and microchipping pets so they can be identified and returned more easily if they wander off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Better Business Bureau is warning pet owners about an increase in lost-pet scams. In 2022, the BBB…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-358661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}