ATLANTA — Pet owners will tell you their dog or cat is like a family member - and they would do anything to find a missing pet.
But 11Alive's Kaitlyn Ross discovered a scammer is accused of preying on people’s desperation. Victims got in touch with us through our K9Kait Facebook page – which is devoted to animal stories across Georgia.
The victims’ accounts are all the same.
The scammer will likely copy and paste the same story to people who are so desperate to get their animals back, they'll do anything the person asks.
"I came out to the park with my dog as I've done for all four years. For some reason, she just took off like a shot into the woods," Jimmy Haynor said.
Haynor searched for his dog Cassie for hours after she ran off two months ago. He's come back every day since.
"I put an old sweaty shirt down the trail, and I kept putting food there," he said.
After weeks of not finding any information about Cassie, he got a text. It read: "I have your dog."
"I tried to call and you couldn't get an answer from the phone number. So I thought'that was odd," the text message said.
But the texter had an answer for everything. Even why his dog didn't look quite right.
"This picture I sent may not be clear to you and may look weird, yeah that's because I'm having issues with my phone camera," Haynor recounted.
Claudia Aradillas says she got the exact same text from the same number when her dog Sophie went missing. The next text – identical, too.
But then all of a sudden, the text said, "it's going to cost you."
Aradillas said she sent the person $300 in Amazon gift cards. Haynor said he took money out of the bank, but the person who supposedly had his dog never showed.
"I was happy to pay the money, I was ready to give him $200, cash. If he had my dog, I would have been happy to do that," he said.
When neither of them got their dogs back, though, they looked up the phone number online.
"Evidentially this person has been doing it to a lot of people, and some people have paid," Haynor said.
He said he went to police after realizing the scammer never had his dog in the first place. He doesn't think they ever had Aradillas' dog, either.
But he said the person seemed to know everything about his dog, including what she looked like.
"I don't know that much about stealing pictures. It's definitely her, but it's a picture I put up," Haynor said.
They think the scammer is stealing the information off the missing dog posters the desperate owners share.
"I've put posters around the neighborhoods, I had these posters made up and put them at intersections," he said.
Cassie went missing in Sandy Springs, Sophie in Kennesaw. Another person posted that they got scammed in Midtown.
Haynor wants people all over the state who have dogs that are missing to beware.
"I said, 'you're the scum of the earth.' That's exactly what I texted," Haynor added.
The scammer blocked Haynor's number after that, and, when 11Alive tried to call, the number was disconnected.
After posting a warning about the scam, Aradillas actually got her dog back. Someone saw her plea and got in touch.
But Cassie is still missing, and Haynor said he would do anything to get her back.
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