Lost pet scams are on the rise! Be very cautious about who you are dealing with and never give out your credit card information or send money to an unknown fee based lost pet service! Be cautious of services that over promise results. This is a red flag! Remember, any service offering to "get your pet home sooner" or offering guaranteed results for a fee is a scam and is preying on lost pet owners. Stop, breathe and do your homework! Never pay a fee to a lost pet service on an impulse! . Lost Dogs Georgia, Lost Cats Georgia and PetFBI.org are always 100% free to use. We will never charge a fee or over promise results! We offer pet owners free advice as well as a free listing in our online database and a free post on all of our social media sites. We also send lost pet alerts to members who have signed up to receive them.
Google Code Scam
Here's how the scam works: Scammers scour the internet for public postings of cellphone numbers. For lost pet owners, these scammers don’t have your pet and have no interest in helping you. Their goal is to use your phone number to help them create a new google voice account for their scams. Next, the scammer contacts you via text or email about your ad. They tell you they are going to send you a 6 digit code to forward to them to prove you are a real person. This code is the google verification code for their new account.
The scammer then uses the google verification to activate their new google voice account.
How does this affect you?
We found this information on the Google support forum: "Your own security has not been compromised; this scam only leveraged your personal phone number as an “admission ticket” for the scammer."
Here is the suggested fix: * If you did not give the code to the scammer, then nothing happened and no additional steps are needed. * If you gave the scammer a 6 digit code, use the following steps to remove your number from their Google voice account. According to the Google support article below, it's very likely that the scammer has already removed your phone number from their account. Their goal is not to forward calls to your personal phone number, but merely to use it as an "admission ticket" to get their own Google Voice number, use it to scam others, get rid of that number, and then repeat the scam over and over. Steps to create a new Google Account and add your phone number: * If you never had a Google Voice number, create one here on Google by using this link: https://voice.google.com. You will create a new Google Voice number, and at the same time deactivate the number the scammer is using. Steps to add your Google Voice number back to your existing account: 1. On your computer, go to voice.google.com. 2. At the top right, click Settings. 3. Under Linked numbers, click New linked number 4. Enter the phone number to link. 5. To verify your number, voice provides a six-digit code 6. Enter the code and then click verify 7. Click Claim.
We have tested our site and have not found that our listings have been compromised. As an added measure of security, we no longer add the phone number to the heading of our post. This prevents bots from crawling our page and capturing your phone number.
Scammers comment under lost pet listing on Facebook or other social media sites. The posters often look legit and will often post helpful advice followed by a testimonial and then a link to a FAKE Instagram or WhatsApp account where they will attempt to charge a fee for service. This is a scam!
Lost Dogs Georgia, Lost Cats Georgia and PetFBI.org are always 100% free to use. We will never charge a fee or over promise results! We offer pet owners free advice as well as a free listing in our online database and a free post on all of our social media sites. We also send lost pet alerts to members who have signed up to receive them.