My family's cat has been missing for 2 months now. We just saw a message from someone on a missing pet facebook thread about them finding our cat (first image). We replied and direct messaged them for a bit, then contacted their neighbor who was the one who supposedly found the cat. They had found her 2 days after we lost her in the park next to our neighborhood, and they sent us some more pictures of the cat as proof. We drove to a gas station 30 mins away to meet them to see if it was our cat, but they only left after we got there. They said they payed $160 while keeping her, so they wanted half of that before even meeting. My dad, who was talking to them, told them they wouldn't;t but after some back and forth he said he would pay $50 even if it wasn't our cat, but the full price if it was. He just needed to see the cat and person in real life. They refused and claimed we were trying to rob them of their cat, so we left. Please don't do this, it's heartbreaking and we were so excited to see our cat again and it was just an elaborate scam. My younger sister cried the whole 30 mins back home. We had been so excited and were basically vibrating with joy and excitement, but the way they didn't even care about us was horrible. Please be aware that there are other people across the screen, and real people you are hurting.
Also, if someone claims to have found your pet but doesn't include any information, be careful! Scammers in this area will often claim to have found it, ask for your phone number, and then ask for a confirmation code they can use to do bad things. just be careful when on the internet, there are a lot of bad and heartless people out there.
