Pittsburgh-area woman becomes target of scammer after kitten goes missing
BALDWIN, Pa. (KDKA) — A Baldwin woman said a scammer tried to take advantage of her love for her missing kitten.
It's impossible to miss the posters for Gary the kitten in the neighborhood near Harmening Avenue and Andrade Street. But missing him is all his owner Jackie Miller can think about.
"We just worry about him all the time because we don't know where he is," Miller said.
Nearly two weeks after Gary went missing, after putting up posters and Facebook posts, Miller and her husband got a call from someone claiming to be with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Animal Care and Control.
"He said that the cat was hit by a car and that the cat needed surgery," Miller said. "We were questioning it. The first question we asked him is, 'Where are you calling from?' And he kept saying Pittsburgh. And we said where in Pittsburgh and he didn't know the address."
It was their first red flag, she said. Next, she said the man told them that he'd spoken with their veterinarian and learned their cat had been paralyzed. She wondered how the caller knew it was even their kitten because they had not had the kitten chipped.
When Miller and her husband asked to see the cat, the person claiming to be with animal control said they could not come in. It was yet another red flag. They demanded to see their cat before paying for a surgery.
"Then he started getting very angry," Miller said. "He said, 'I don't know why you're giving me an attitude. If you don't want to have help your cat with the surgery, we'll just put him down.'"
That's when they knew something was definitely wrong.
"I'm crying at this time because this is just traumatizing," Miller said "We hung up on them."
They then called the listed number for animal control.
"He immediately said it is a scam," Miller said. "He said there are people out there that are doing this to other people."
It's left her questioning everything.
"I got real excited at first, and then I started to cry because I thought our little Gary's hurt, and that was one of the last things I ever wanted," Miller said.
Through that pain, she's holding on to hope of finding Gary.
"I just can't believe that someone actually did this to me because all I want is for him back," Miller said. "In the last 13 days, I've been looking nonstop for him. And thinking that someone had him and something happened to him was just traumatizing. It's been a horrible day."
