CUMMING, Ga. — A metro Atlanta animal shelter says a check for $15,000 paid for by donations was stolen.
Furkids provides lifesaving care for hundreds of cats and dogs at its Cumming facility.
Channel 2’s Tom Regan was at the shelter, where staff say someone stole one of their checks causing a big problem for construction of a new dog shelter.
The money was supposed to go to a contractor for the dog shelter to be built. With the money gone, they don’t know what steps to take next.
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“To have money like this, such a large amount just snatched from us, it’s just devastating,” Samantha Shelton, Furkids Executive Director and Founder, said.
Furkids is Georgia’s largest no-kill animal shelter. They provide temporary homes to hundreds of animals, as well as medical care.
Recently, they sent a $15,000 check to a contractor working on their new shelter.
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“The check was mailed in Kennesaw and it should have arrived in Norcross, but it never made it to its destination,” Shelton told Channel 2 Action News. “Maybe it was stolen out of a mailbox. We don’t know how it occurred, that the person got a hold of the check.”
Shelton said she did get a hold of the check after it was fraudulently cashed.
“Someone intercepted that check, they washed it, they wrote a fake name on in it and they cashed it,” Shelton said. “So we lost $15,000.”
Shelton said this is the first time Furkids has been victimized by significant fraud, which undercuts its critical mission helping defenseless animals everyday.
“It’s a big hit, we work very hard to save the lives of homeless animals, to raise money needed to care for them and build a new building to save more lives,” Shelton said. “We are new to this, we have never had theft and we have never had a theft like this before. It’s scary.”
Shelton said the shelter has contacted police and the bank, but there’s no guarantee they’ll get the money back.
She says that on top of the mail check theft, their organization is being targeted by thieves sending out fraudulent mobile pay requests for donations or payments, with their logo attached. Scammers sent a message to a man who had posted information on a missing cat.
The message claimed to have come from Furkids, and that they had found and treated the missing cat after it was hit by a car. The message asked the cat owner to Venmo $2,700 to get his cat back. It was all fake.
“This is terrifying that there are persons out there scamming pet owners who have lost their pets. We would never ask for money from the individual like that. These are fake Venmo accounts that they say they are Furkids. We have tried to get Venmo to take them down. The process is long and difficult.
Shelton says anyone receiving a cash app message from Furkids should be skeptical, and never sent money until checking with her organization directly to determine whether it is legitimate.
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