ECORSE, Mich. – An Ecorse woman is warning other pet owners about a scam she says cost her nearly $200 as she desperately searched for her missing dog.
After her dog, Coco, slipped through a fence and disappeared last week, Elise Amidon posted photos of the dog and her phone number on social media.
“It was devastating,” Amidon said.
Soon after, a man called, saying he’d found Coco.
He texted her a photo of a dog that looked similar to the one in her post. In her panic, Amidon said she immediately believed it was her pet.
When she tried to arrange to pick up the dog, the man demanded money first, saying he needed to be reimbursed for taking the dog to a veterinarian and for gas.
Amidon said she was so focused on getting Coco back that she sent him close to $200 via Cash App.
But each time they set a meeting place in Ecorse, the man failed to show up, she said.
“Just please give me my dog back, that’s all I want,” Amidon recalled thinking.
After several failed attempts to meet, Amidon took another look at the photo.
This time, she noticed details that didn’t seem right.
“I did notice that there wasn’t a shadow in the photo,” Amidon said, adding that she now believes the image may have been generated using artificial intelligence.
To help others avoid similar scams, Local 4 reached out to experts.
Rich Miller, founder of Stack Cybersecurity, said there are several ways to spot a fake or manipulated image.
“There’s different things you can look at with the image itself,” Miller said. “To see if it’s sloppy edges or blurred edges or really kind of analyzing the background, and you can run the images through Google.”
Miller’s coworkers also let Local 4 know Content Credentials is another website people can use to spot AI-generated images.
Amidon said she doesn’t want anyone else to lose money or hope the way she did.
“Ask for a video, ask to FaceTime to see if that pet is with that person,” Amidon said.
In the end, Amidon was reunited with Coco.
The Lincoln Park animal shelter posted online about a stray dog they had found. The dog was Coco.