In New Hope, a cautionary tale about missing pet phone scams

Phone scam targeting pet owners

UPDATE: Rapunzel has since been found and is OK.

Rapunzel the cat with her owner.

Read the full story below.

Debbie Gerdes loves hanging out with Gus, her mini Bernedoodle, but she’s most worried about Rapunzel, the family cat.

“So, we went calling for her, she didn’t come back,” Gerdes says. “We set out food, posted immediately that she was missing.”

Gerdes says the 3-year-old tabby snuck out of their New Hope home in the middle of the night last week.

She posted a “missing cat” notice online.“And then I got a phone call from someone who identified themselves as someone who works for the Animal Humane Society,” Gerdes recalls.

That call came on Thursday night.  “What they told me was someone had turned in my cat, and they did a scan for her microchip, that came up with her name and my phone,” Gerdes explains.  She says she set up a video chat with the caller, who she says never got back to her.

Upset and more than a little scared, she went online and learned quickly about pay-for-play phone pet scams.

“They will tell you your cat’s been hit by a car or was attacked by another animal and needs immediate treatment and ask you to pay over the phone,” Gerdes says.  

Authorities say her case isn’t unique.

“So, we know the scammers are spoofing our number, and are calling people who have lost their pets,” says Brittany Baumann, an Animal Humane Society spokesperson.

The society and Minneapolis Animal Care and Control have seen this particular scam for the last year.“It’s just awful to hear that someone would prey on someone who is in a very vulnerable spot with a lost pet,” Baumann notes. “Just awful to hear. Who does that?”

The Better Business Bureau says it’s seen variations on this scam, including a caller asking for $3,600 to pay for surgery for a cat and $185 to pay for a drone to locate a lost feline.

Experts say you should never share monetary or personal information on the phone, and the Animal Humane Society says it never calls pet owners to ask for payment.

Baumann says you should hang up and call them directly.

Gerdes says she plans to keep looking, but she says her case is a cautionary tale.

“It’s so sad,” she declares. “There’s already so many scams out there, and they’re preying on so many people, and I know what it feels like to want to get your animal back.”  
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