#fake sick cat scam

[chickalupe]

Oh, just got an ask for the fabled “sick cat” scam I’ve seen so much about! 

...Does this mean I’m finally famous on Tumblr Dot Com?!?!

[redstonedust]

i keep thinking about the "belgian scam ring" conspiracy because it think it betrays a misunderstanding of how internet scams work.

like, the majority of scammers don't really spend their time carefully maintaining a story? they're often low effort by design. i got a series of spam emails recently telling me they'd recorded me masturbating through my webcam and i need to give them bitcoin or they'd send the footage to all my contacts. my webcam is never plugged in and i have no email contacts, i know that's bullshit, but it doesn't matter because i imagine they're sending that same email to a thousand people, and statistically at least one of them will fall for it. it's the same with the classic nigerian prince style emails, or the 'my cat is sick' posts from near-empty blogs with stolen photos. there's just not much point crafting a story to cover your ass when a half assed one will catch a few easy marks.

so seeing some users peddle the idea that the majority of palestinian gofundmes are fake and everyone who verifies them is actually in on it is like... farfetched? or at least it would be a logistical nightmare. i'm not gonna say high effort, organised scams have never existed, and i'm not gonna begrudge people for being cautious with their funds. but at some point the reality you have to construct is so convoluted that i can only assume it's just an excuse to avoid saying that you don't want to donate to people. and that's your choice, but at least be honest about it, because trying to discredit fundraisers based on flimsy evidence is doing tangible damage in the real world.

[jenthebug]

Got a fake blog asking for money. You know, looks like a normal blog but all the entries were put up 3 hours ago? Lotsa popular hashtags? Sob story?

This one was not a cat.

This one was cancer.

Don’t you come to me on International Women’s Day, running a scam and asking me to pay you money, by claiming you have the disease that is actually making me sick and poor right now.

Fuck off with that.

Reported and blocked.

[infectiouspiss]

next fake ass "hi me/my cat/my baby/my plant is sick and i need £500 please help 🥺" scamming piece of shit who appears in my inbox gets killed fuck you go away die

[asexualzoro]

Hello, I'm from Gaza City because of the war,my house was destroyed. We lost everything,my family and I did not have anything left. We left our homes in search of a safe place and we were displaced three  times to different places to survive, but unfortunately there's no safe place in Gaza. My mother is very sick and she's a kidney failure patient in need of treatment outside. She suffers from LS. Help me and my family to survive. Please, your small donation can make a huge difference. A friend outside Gaza has come in to help me run the donation program so that my mother can be evacuated. My friend Mr. Fred Odhiambo is receiving the donations on our behalf to help us organise how to evaluate Gaza in the next four days

i’m posting this ask instead of just deleting it like i normally would with these kinds just so everyone else can see and be aware: this is almost certainty fake, and you should watch for similar frauds

how do i know? this account is about 13 hours old. there’s maybe 10-20 posts on it, all reblogged today—enough it looks like a real account at a glance, but so few that you can scroll to the bottom and see the age of the oldest post in less than a minute. this person also followed me immediately after sending me the ask

this is exactly what any scam account ever looks like. the people who send asks for help with their “sick pets” look exactly the same—relatively new accounts you can scroll to the bottom of on maybe five minutes max, pinned donation posts, following you immediately after begging you for money. the advice for those scam pet donation questions is always “there is no cat,” and i’m inclined to assume the same of this

the link in this asker’s pinned post links directly to some guy’s paypal, not a gofundme or similar, and this person claims to have raised hundreds of dollars and to be so close to their goal despite the post having, at the time i looked at it, only 18 notes. donation posts don’t work like that, no donation post gains donations that quickly

there are a lot of people who need help in gaza, with a lot of reputable campaigns and charities and aid groups. but when people need help and money, you’re always going to get scams. people like this are hoping you want to help—we all do, right now—and are also hoping you’ll be moved do so without checking too hard. trying to profit off of a genocide through low effort tumblr scams like this is fucking vile, but use this as a reminder to check your facts before you send your money anywhere. and, if someone sends you, as a random fandom blogger without much wide-reaching influence, an ask begging for money, remember: nine times out of ten, there is no cat

[salemoleander]

Hiyah! sorry for sending this! Just trying to reach out to get some help for my baby is in need of urgent care so I’m trying to raise some funds for his upcoming vet care visit, I made a post about it and I pinned it on my blog, hoping that you’d be so kind to help me share the word, please as every bit of help can get Tobi one step closer to relief. It would truly mean the world to me and i pray that all goes well on your end, too! stay safe!, if its possible, try to answer this ask in private or message me if it’s fine, reason is that, people might think I "pressured" you to do so, as some people can be weird about these things. Sorry again for being too direct. 🥹❤️🐈

Hello blog whose oldest post is from 6 hours ago! Doing a great job of pretending to be in a few fandoms with likely marks.

If the request for pet assistance didn't tip me off, the request not to answer publicly sure would. A reverse image search shows that your pictures of poor Tobi are from this woman's GoFundMe and she explicitly says at the bottom (presumably bc you have been trying to run this scam repeatedly) that she has not posted anything about this on tumblr.

I'm answering this publicly so people can get a sense of what signs to look for in scams on here. Remember- if a message is requesting money and is:

Urgent or time-sensitive, pushing you to act quickly and not have time to think

Secretive/ telling you not to talk about it

Appeals to authority, like faux emails from your bank

Threatening punishment if you don't, like those fake calls from the IRS

Personable and trying to connect emotionally, as in here with a request for help with a sick cat

Stop and think - am I being scammed? No request for money is ever so urgent that you don't have half an hour to reverse image search and google.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Reminder, if you ever get a random ask that's like "sorry for bothering you, but could you share my pinned post about my sick cat?" it's a scam.

Doesn't matter how convincing the blog looks, it's all fake.

DO NOT ENGAGE.

[mangocheesecakes]

how many of these scams are the same person? i know the paypal names leila rajab and remmy cheptau and tasneem r’m رجابو are the same person, and now hamdi ahmed is posting the exact same script as they do, so in my mind that's one person behind those four..... and Nada,r Ab'r Hus'sein and raobh tingo are the same person, and nchagwa mwita now goes by annah musa. are there other names that are really just one person?

your guess is as good as mine anon.

Before the genocide in Palestine started, some of the kind of scams we would find here were:

pet donation scams (stealing dog and cat pics from facebook)

cancer and diabetes donation scams (usually pretending to be Black American or African)

homeless/persecuted gay or trans person scam

the occasional impoverished or sick Filipino scam

Since this genocide started, most of these have disappeared, most notable being the pet scammer. The insulin scam has merged with the fake Palestinian scam. There's still one or two of the fake African/African American cancer patient, as you may have noted when you tracked down these urls (the one that always has the Black Lives Matter title, as an example).

One conclusion I can make is that there's a scam ring, and that most if not all of these accounts are being handled by a group of people.

Laura Deramas, we know, has been repeatedly implicated in a number of scams before these fake Palestinian accounts started, but I genuinely believe she is still here also trying her hand at pretending to be Palestinian (the Laura Mae Noro and most recently the Maureen Jane Aloot scams I believe are definitely hers). Whether she is part of a larger scam ring along with the other fake Palestinian scams or if she is in a separate group along with her friends, I can only guess.

But it's very good that you are able to take note of which scam paypals are being used together, anon! Sadly there's been a lot of them for so long that I just gave up trying to keep track which type of scam is using which paypal name, the only thing that I can do is take note of the name and mark it as a scam so that they'll be easily caught once they are reused.

@kyra45 may have a better record and a better memory of these scam paypals and actually most of the time I just rely on their masterlists and posts when I come upon a potential scam account that I haven't seen before.

[neechees]

I'm not sure if you answered this before but how do I know if a donation post is legit because to me they have been all looking the same (no shade to actual people that need donations)

Here's some of the big ones that appear most often & are some tell tale signs of a scam, that should be taken in together (aka, having only one of these things won't automatically mean it's a scam, it should have multiple of these on the checklist).

The blog is new. We're talking like under a week old. Go into their archive, & check for how long their blog has apparently existed. If its been apparently made in like a year or two or under, and/or their blog seems to be somewhat active but their posts are scarce (like say, it says their blog was made in January 2022 but their archive shows like 3 posts every month), then that's suspicious. Blogs that have only been in existence for a few days or a week or two are the most obvious to snuff out, & are most likely scams, but the ones that have seemingly been active for longer could be backtracked & people assume they must be genuine

^their blog is backtracked. What backtracking is, is when you can edit posts on your blog to appear at a certain date that you choose (often older than they actually are), & they'll show up in your archive to the date you edited it to. Scammers do this because people caught onto the fact that most scam blogs were very new & suddenly started asking for money, so now they backtrack to make their blog look older than it actually is so that people will think it's genuine. How you can check is by turning on dash dates for tumblr posting, looking at their reblogs to see what date their rb was posted, & then comparing it to the date the original post was made & what date the person they reblogged from had reblogged it. If the suspected person's reblog is somehow older than the original post was made, its been backtracked. Notes also aren't affected by backtracking, so if they apparently reblogged something last year, then the note for it shouldn't be showing up super recently.

Their blog is very unpersonalized, generic, not very diverse, & almost looks like a bot, even if the blog description may look convincing. Scammers have taken to stealing or copying/mimicking blog descriptions from real users on here to look more genuine, but the rest of their blog almost looks like a bot. What I mean is, if in their description they'll say they like cats or own a cat, then most of their blog will feature posts about cats. Or if they say they're gay, then most of their blog will feature posts about being gay. There's very little diversity in posts or that show a multifaceted personality to the blog, & this is usually because they just went into the tags for whatever persona they're faking for the scam (often to try match up with any info they've stolen or fake stories they've made up for why they allegedly need money ) & reblogged a bunch of posts to make their blog look more genuine. This may also include lack of personal posts that showcase their political opinions, media opinions, fandom interests, personal life (outside of apparently venting for, again, allrgedly why they need money), interactions with other users, etc. Most real users on this site will have varying posts that showcase all of these, but a blog that lacks all this who's main activity is suddenly asking for donations usually means its a scam that was set up to try look genuine

They're fundraising for a pet. Usually a dog or a cat (these are the most common ones, the pet scams are more common than the human ones). Common alleged "illnesses" in these scams are a "blood parasite" or broken bones. Often the proof photos will be very graphic & not tagged for gore etc

If they're not fundraising for a pet, & if it's for a human, usually it's either allegedly very sick children (often babies or toddlers), or the elderly. There's a common scam going around multiple times over a period of time where someone will claim they need money for someone sick, the sick person "dies", THEN they'll say they need money right this second for alleged funeral costs or some other wild claim that either the body will be withheld from them or be dug up if they don't pay the funeral home immediately (neither of which are legal nor standard practice), or something like that

Anon or asks in general, messages, and replies on the post are turned off. If you go into the replies & see the notification that "some replies may be hidden", then it's likely somebody already expressed suspicion of the poster or called them out, & so their reply/reblog was hidden & the op blocked them.

They sent you an ask to reblog their post, but asked you not to answer the ask or to answer it privately. This on its own it's always suspicious, since I've seen genuine users do this as well, but scammers in particular will do this because they like to copy+paste asks multiple times & use the same or similar script for different scams & across different scams blogs. Copy & paste their ask into tumblr search, you might find results where they're already being called out, OR evidence where they used the same ask for a different blog pretending to be a different person for another scam. That's why they ask people to answer privately; because it's harder for people to snuff them out.

Inconsistent information. Look at the info & "proof" photos in the donation post closely & compare them to the others, & the given information. Then go and look at any other posts or "updates" theyve done on the situation. Does it all match up? Are there inconsistencies? Is some evidence theyre allegedly trying to give missing? Is something edited out of the photo that seems like it didn't need to be (like the date of a document cropped off, or someone's face when they're trying to prove its themselves)? Half the time the "proof" photos don't actually prove anything the post claims, & the scammer is betting on people not taking a closer look. Many scam posts are also made hastily & might be copy-pasted from either previous scams or stolen info from genuine fundraisers to look more credible, but will have inconsistent info from being put together so quickly. **

(^in connection to the above as well:) One big one is that they might give "proof" of medical or vet documents, but the name on the document doesn't match with the name on the paypal info, & they might say "we" or "us" to imply theres a second person, but won't say why the person on the document isnt directly recieving the money. Like if they say they're fundraising for their adult sister's medical bills, the names don't match up, & they dont have a reason for why the adult sister isnt fundraising for herself.**

Their paypal name or alleged name is the same or very similar to one of the known scammers on the scammers list. These scammers will use multiple paypals across different scams while pretending to be different people, sometimes impersonating real people who may or may not have done genuine donation posts before. See the blog @kyra45 to look at the named scammers list, & if they used one of the names, it's a scammer.

Under the readmore I'm going to get into detail about inconsistencies & give examples (in blue regarding the **), as well as some other signs that are a bit more minor, but may very well indicate someone is scamming (again, should be taken in with the rest of the above)

:readmore:

** More on inconsistencies: Some common mistakes/inconsistencies are say, fundraising for a male dog but sometimes using she/her pronouns in the same post as using he/him pronouns for it, the people or animals look different in different photos (one scam alleged they were raising for a 1 year old child & then proceeded to show photos of a child that looked 4-5 years old in one photo & like a newborn in another), or they'll say they're fundraising for a dog but give photos of a cat, they'll say they're fundraising because of a house fire but their house photos shows no evidence of fire damage. Another scammer alleged they were homeless & living in a tent, but gave a "proof" photo of an empty landscape with no tent in sight (so it didn't actually prove they were homeless, or that they were living in a tent, or that it was THEIR photo, & the photo could've been taken anywhere). Sometimes the evidence isn't as obvious, like once we determined a scammer was using photos stolen from someone American because the "proof" photos they gave featured the wrong type of electrical outlet (an American one) that wouldn't be available to where they alleged to be located in. Another time I managed to snuff out a scammer because they alleged to be fundraising for a sick child in the hospital & gave photos as "proof", & in the background it featured a phone number of the hospital the people in the photos were located in, & I managed to figure out the photos were stolen because the hospital number was located in the United States, but they claimed they weren't American nor recieving treatment in the U.S, & their paypal used British Pounds. & that's another big one, where they'll say they're from one country but then their paypal currency will be automatically set to a different country.

Some other small indications:

They get defensive when asked for more solid evidence & refuse to provide any. This one can be a little tricky though, since genuine users get accused of scamming all the time, & it'd be understandable if they'd react with annoyance. Take this one in specifically when the proof they provided doesn't actually prove anything and/or it looks like the info may be stolen

Overfamiliarity in asks when asking people to reblog their posts. Things like calling you pet names (like "bestie", "sweetie", "darling", etc) or acting like you're close even if you've never spoken. This is one because its become a trend in scam asks lately

They followed your blog quite suddenly & then asked you to reblog their posts. Scammers do this to keep tabs on people to get them to reblog their scam posts. If you recieve a bunch of followers like this, & they all have a kind of similar way of speaking & meet some or all the other checks above, then it's probably the exact same scammer sending you multiple asks for different scams.

If you donate to them even once (or if you've seen other people experience the following), they'll continually keep coming to your inbox/dms to keep asking you for money, even if you insist you don't have much money to give or can't give anymore. Scammers harass people who have given them money because they hope they can get more out of you.

[thesugarhole]

hey, hi. sorry for sending this ask. I know it’s inappropriate, but we badly needed some help right and i hope you’d consider .. its for our elder cat who needs immediate care, you can find the post here. i pinned it also in my blog btw. Hoping you’d be so kind to boost/share to help us alleviate the cost as it would tremendously help us a lot. if you can, pls try to answer this privately as some people might i pressure you to do so.. i know its weird, just wanted to avoid it if possible. Thanks a lot, and sorry again for being so direct. 🙏

you people genuinely fucking disgust me. its always the same scam, its ALMOST always the same cat, its always the same method of finding people to send this shit to- like i almost have it down to a T, with how patternized i get these asks. usually i dont have to look into it more than 2 minutes before blocking and reporting, but you happen to catch my ire specifically because ive been having a very shit couple of months lately.

make a blog

reblog some fandom and pets shit to make it look well lived (yall been severely slacking on it, you barely have 50 posts

first ever reblog from staff being one day ago

compose the bait post (poorly done everytime by the way. what fucking wednesday??? next week? next month? you sent this to me on a friday)

make sure you cycle your sick cat images, lest you send the exact same one to the same person within the span of two months!

go to popular cat image of the week

scroll through every note, follow, send ask

uwuu im so sorry to bother but pls reblog or donate my cat is very sick and im on disability and i have paper skin and the cat has glass bones please please please please. ANSWER PRIVATELY RAWWWWUGHR

people who you catch in their first ever sick cat scam give you a buck

seasoned users block and report

eventually some speak out, scam dedicated blogs share it

grift over before the week ends (seriously, ive never seen you guys stick for more than a week to this crap, its either you find a lot of newbies giving you a dollar fast enough, or you get caught fast enough.

no idea if its the same dumbass trying it everytime, changing names to 'emily' to 'sherri' to whatever, but you people are nuts to not give up on this scheme in particular because you manage to snag a couple bucks from the notoriously non fact-checking tumblr userbase.

i dont even know where yall grab the fake vet bills because at this point the same sick cats images/videos have been using the same five animals. hell, HERE'S ONE reblogged just five days ago (currently: 28/10/2023) from the person im reblogging from! and heres YOUR post i guess, for comparison. youre welcome for my reblog. at least you switch out language and disability points and vet bills with more frequency that you switch the cats. sick cats in a vet environment are harder to come by, i'll asume.

the literal audacity one of you had some months ago to grab an actual sick pet from an actual tumblr user looking to pay their vet bills for your grift is nothing short of vile, and im happy other people including the actual cat owner got to document it. and i can also hope the cat itself is fine and recovered, or at least in a better place.

fucking grow up and get out of my inbox with your rabbie dee ass posts (man, remember that one? geesh.)

[mackthecheese]

Hey scam accounts!

I don’t give a flying fuck about your fake sick cat, your 146.5 children with cancer, or your debt to the mafia. I don’t. Please kindly fuck off or at least get more creative. Thanks!

[chinchillasinunison]

Hey, if you get an ask from someone named purrfectsight about boosting a sick cat post, it's a scam. This person only has a couple of random reblogs on their entire blog with the oldest one from literally three hours ago as of me posting this. The cat in their profile picture is also a completely different one than the one in the fake vet post, too. I just want you guys to know so you don't spread that kind of stuff.

[subatomicskud]

Anyone else getting an influx of, my cat is sick please donate scam asks? and you know it's fake cause you go onto their blog and find it's only a day old.

I've gotten like 2 within this week so far.

[glugglestar]

hey, i think that ask you received is a scam. i checked their profile and while they have reblogged a lot of posts, they don’t go further than february 5 (unless there was a glitch on my end). occasionally bots will go around sending people asks about their cancer diagnosis, their cat that needs surgery, their sick child etc. im pretty sure they’re almost always all fake

I was hoping it wasn't this time

Thanks for telling me

[all-made-of-stardust]

Greetings !! I apologize for being this direct! I know times are tough and I might sound desperate but I’m hoping that you would be so kind to please boost/share the post I pinned for my cat who needs urgent help as we are trying to raise some funds for her needs if you have some time to spare, It would be so meaningful to me as I’m praying it would reach more people and gain traction at the same time, please 💔🙏

Unsure if anyone who follows me has gotten one of these, but this is a scam and the blog is fake (the oldest post is 13 hours old).

This kind of scam has apparently been making the rounds lately (just search #pet donation scam) and I wanted to showcase how easily they can dupe you.

As a beloved cat owner myself, it honestly makes me sick to my stomach that these assholes are trying to rely on people's sympathy for injured/ailing cats to scam and steal money. It also makes people who genuinely actually need help more vulnerable/unbelievable. It's sick and twisted, and I hope people can learn from my post here.

Anyway, have an actual legit pic of my kitty, Bree, for your troubles. She is 100% healthy and fine, I just figured y'all would love to see her adorable face.

[transsexual-terabyte]

cuan the scam blogs stop sending me asks about their fake sick cats.... my inbox is for my mutuals to come and say hi and perhaps ask fun questions