TYLER, Texas — It’s the start of summer, the SPCA of East Texas is busy as per usual, but a recent development with their online presence has thrown a bit of a wrench into their operations.
"Honestly, it has been a nightmare," interim director for the SPCA of East Texas, Karen Kilgore said.
On Saturday, the SPCA of East Texas’s Facebook account was hacked. Since then, there have been posts about a French Bulldog, Yorkshire terrier, and golden retriever puppies, none of which can be found at the shelter.
The scammers are asking for a deposit of $400 dollars to adopt these animals, though Kilgore says they will never ask for a deposit from anyone, they instead look for the best fit when finding a home for a shelter pet. Unfortunately, some people have already fallen for the scam.
"Right now it’s probably close to ten, between applications submitted, I don’t know about deposits, but I know of at least four that we’ve reached out to and told them to immediately contact their bank or their credit card provider," Kilgore said
This is a massive inconvenience for the SPCA of East Texas, but they’re not the only shelter affected by this. Andalusia Animal Shelter in Alabama was hacked by seemingly the same or a similar group. They’ve been trying to get their account back since March.
"It’s extremely frustrating. You know we had all these people that, I mean they would diligently look on our page, see what they could share, what they could do. Our Amazon links were pinned on there, all these things," Kayla Robbins, shelter manager at Andalusia Animal Shelter said.
Right now the SPCA of East Texas is trying to work with Facebook to get their account back, though they haven’t made much progress yet. It’s an unfortunate situation all around, for both the shelter and those that paid hoping to bring a new member of the family home.
"It’s sad for anybody, and then you’ve got nonprofits and people in rescue, but it’s sad for anyone to fall victim to a scam. But again, our main thing is we’re just trying to shut it down," Kilgore said.