BELLEVILLE, Mich. (WXYZ) — Animal shelters warn that scammers are creating fake social media accounts to solicit donations from animal lovers by using stolen photos and videos of sick and abused pets.
Watch Carli Petrus's video report:
These fraudulent accounts are stealing content from legitimate animal shelters and rescues, creating emotional appeals with images of animals in need to trick well-meaning donors.
"It's just all sad stories that are on their pages, and it's all for money that should not be going to them," said Michelle Eastlake with Friends of Michigan Animals Rescue in Belleville.
Eastlake discovered her organization was being impersonated when a supporter notified them about an Instagram page using their logo and a similar name.
"It hasn't really affected us in a way we know of until just recently, with this Instagram post that one of our supporters actually notified us on Sunday about that there was a page out there using our logo and a very similar name," Eastlake said.
The Instagram account operating under the username "friendsofmichiganrescue" has also stolen videos from shelters in other states, including Yaqui Animal Rescue in Texas.
Rebecca Chavez from Yaqui Animal Rescue confirmed the fake page stole several videos of a dog named Cane, who suffered severe neglect.
"If you haven't seen Cane on our rescue page, he was a dog that was owned, severe owner neglect, almost half of his face, his skin was completely missing, it was a pretty gruesome case that we had," Chavez said.
These scams directly impact legitimate organizations' ability to raise funds for animals in need.
"If you have other pages that are soliciting donations that could've gone to us it really impacts our ability to collect funding to be able to help these animals and then you also have people that may have donated to these other pages and then they're probably confused like I've already donated here who are you," Chavez said.
When we reached out to the Instagram page about these allegations, they denied being fake, describing themselves as a "well wisher" trying to share and repost for rescues.
We also reached out to Meta about the possible scams, but we are still waiting to hear back.
Eastlake recommends verifying organizations before donating by visiting their official websites rather than social media pages.
"The best way is to go directly to that organization's website, not social media, not a Facebook or an Instagram, but find their real website," Eastlake said.
She also believes social media platforms need stricter verification processes for organizations soliciting donations.
"I think pages need to be more controlled and verified. They need something where an organization, a non-profit needs to show proof of their legitimacy, whether it's just here's our website, we are a verified person, a verified organization, a verified account, whatever that may be, instead of just allowing multiple pages daily to pop up and start asking for donations," Eastlake said.
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