{"id":486055,"date":"2026-01-02T02:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/486055\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T02:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:02:11","slug":"scammers-use-jacksonville-humane-society-name-to-target-pet-owners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/486055\/","title":{"rendered":"Scammers use Jacksonville Humane Society name to target pet owners"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 The Jacksonville Humane Society has warned the community about two scams targeting pet owners with missing pets and individuals seeking to adopt pets.<\/p>\n

The first scam involves someone who trolls social media websites looking for postings about lost or missing pets, especially postings that list a phone number.<\/p>\n

The scammer will then call the pet owner and tell them their pet was found injured and was taken to the Jacksonville Humane Society, where it underwent surgery or veterinarian treatment. The scammer will also tell the pet owner they have been billed for the service and that they must pay the bill online to retrieve their missing pet.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville Humane Society CEO Lawrence Nicolas called the scam shameful because the scammers are using the society\u2019s name in an attempt to rip off desperate and unsuspecting pet owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would never call an owner and demand payment or anything like that. The last thing we would ever want to do is take advantage of a pet owner, especially during a challenging moment,\u201d Nicolas said.<\/p>\n

Pet owners who think their missing animal has been taken to the Humane Society should come directly to the facility. If the pet was at the humane society and needed veterinary treatment, the owner would not receive a bill for those services.<\/p>\n

Nicolas also recommended pet owners take a picture of their pet and submit that photo to an online program called Petco Love Lost<\/a>. In the event their pet goes missing, that photo and profile can be used to help locate the pet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat system will run against all the lost and found pages across all the shelters in the community and do facial recognition for that pet. If someone finds them and reports it, they can upload a picture of that pet as well, and it will be added to the database,\u201d Nicolas said.<\/p>\n

The program also matches photos of missing pets that are posted on various social media websites.<\/p>\n

The Humane Society also warned that if pet owners choose to post information about their missing pet on social media, they must be careful about posting personal information that scammers could use to try to take advantage of the situation.<\/p>\n

Also, it\u2019s a good idea to microchip a pet so if it goes missing and is eventually found, the chip can help authorities reunite the pet with its owner.<\/p>\n

Nicolas said the second scam involved thieves targeting people who go online to buy a cat.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople said they found a rescue group online where they thought kittens were presumably available for sale and, the seller was asking for a deposit in advance and sending them here to the Jacksonville Humane Society to pick up the kitten, only to discover there is no kitten and the website was a scam,\u201d said Nicolas who went on to say, the scammers appear to be using artificial intelligence to create fake cat rescue group websites that look legitimate. <\/p>\n

\u201cTechnology has unintended consequences and it\u2019s hard to know for sure what those are going to be until we\u2019re living in them and this is another one of those examples of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicolas also wanted people to remember that the Humane Society would never ask for a payment over the phone or in advance.<\/p>\n

If anyone is looking to adopt or foster a cat or kitten, Nicolas said it\u2019s better to visit the Humane Society and meet them.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The Jacksonville Humane Society has warned the community about two scams targeting pet owners with…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":486056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,8314,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-486055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-duval-county","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115823047106407630","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}