Bring Percy Home: Help Our Family Heal From Scammers

Hi, my name is Chloe and our beautiful and sweet family cat Percy has gone missing. Though there is never a good time for a beloved pet to go missing our circumstances couldn’t have been worse. My mom was hospitalized for a stroke and blood clots in her lungs and subsequently placed on a ventilator. While all of this happened her sweet kitty went missing. Never has he gone missing before. As my mom has begun to get better she started asking about how her pets at home were and was beyond devastated to find out Percy had gone missing.

On Thursday January 23rd my mom asked me if I would go to the humane society to try to find another kitty who needed a home and could hopefully help mend the wound that Percy has left in her heart and also help her other kitties be able to cope with the loss of their best friend and brother. That same evening I was contacted by the “Humane Society of Tampa Bay”. A man on the other end of the line asked for me using my maiden name which caught me off guard seeing as I haven’t used it in years. I said “yes, this is she” and the man told me they had our cat, an orange tabby whose microchip registered to the name Percy. I was told he attempted to contact my mom (he also had her full name) but she didn’t answer, I told him that makes sense because she’s in the hospital. He went on to tell me that Percy had been brought in by law enforcement and was gravely injured and could be potentially paralyzed if he didn’t receive immediate surgical intervention. We asked them how much the surgery would be and they said it would be $2,800. We immediately be asked if scratch pay or care credit was an option because we wanted to do anything to help our injured and helpless animal. They told us they don’t work with scratch pay or care credit but if we could pay upfront they would give us a discount and bring it down to $2,100.19. We said yes. We sent the money through PayPal which we thought was the safest way. We were told we had to send it the friends and family option because they needed the money immediately to pay for the surgery and the veterinarians time. After we paid them I was told I would receive a receipt via my email in about 30 minutes verifying our payment and a list of what was being done to him surgically. The man asked if it would be

okay to call in 2 hours - 2.5 hours given it was late in the evening. We immediately said yes call anytime. 30 minutes passed and soon it was 2 hours, then it was 2.5 hours and then it was 8 hours. We were successfully scammed under the guise that our beloved family pet needed immediate surgical intervention.

I’ve started this go fund me not only to hopefully get some of the funds back that were lost that both our bank and PayPal say they can not help us get back, but to also spread awareness of the lengths that scammers will happily go to in order to steal from those who are vulnerable. The spoofing that these individuals were able to do was incredible. From spoofing the exact number, the caller ID, and even the automated Humane Society message. We also want to get Percy’s name and face out as much as possible in hopes we can bring him home. I thank you so much for reading our story and I hope everyone stays safe out there and hugs their pets a little tighter tonight.