The neighbour of my daughter that lives in London is a film director and sometimes she has to go abroad.
She has two cats that are sisters. When she goes away, my daughter and her two housemates look after the cats.
On this occasion in mid December, my daughter and housemates were away on holiday, so couldn’t look after the cats, so the lady asked her cleaner to pop in and feed them.
Unfortunately, one of the cats disappeared and has been missing since. The lady, my daughter and housemates (on their return) went out looking for the cat and put posters up in the area.
The lady, offered £100 as a reward and has had many, what l would call ‘chancers’ ringing up. One said, the cat was hit by a bus and was lying dead beside the road.
Another rang and said, they saw three foxes tearing the cat apart and they put the cat’s remains in a bag but the dustmen took the bag.
These two incidents might have been true but if they weren’t? How sick and how distressing for the lady to hear.
So l wondered, does offering a reward bring out the bad in people, or do you just have to accept, you might hear things you didn’t want to hear?
This is a risk any time you make your private information public (like a phone #). Unfortunately not every one is compassionate nor courteous. I should state that had I lost a pet I would have done the same.
Perhpas better to word the reward differently .
Information leading to recovery of the cat ?
Rewards may also lead unscrupulous people to steal other pets for a reward .
However it’s horrible when a pet goes missing and people never know what has happened .
I don’t really know, maybe some get delight in upsetting others, it really makes you wonder what’s going on in some people’s heads.
Off topic, you should see some of the comments these youtubers get on their channels…so much hate.
I don’t think I would put a poster up offering a reward, because I know what some people are like…I would hope someone would find my Jack, take him to the vets ,or phone the dog pound ,then they could check his microchip…even the police are sent on many goose chases, when they ask for information.
I don’t know what people get out of being cruel like that but if you give out your phone number you’re going to get nutters.
People who call just because of the money aren’t doing it out the goodness of their heart and yes, decent people would help without the promise of a reward
So perhaps just put up posters with no offer of money?
On the other hand, a reward might encourage some to keep an eye out and when you lose a pet, you’ll try anything to get them back.
I wouldn’t offer a reward on a poster, if the pet was found then give a reward.
It’s difficult when cats go missing, I’ve seen a few around here and they always give a phone number, don’t know if they get found.
Someone told me that some people go round looking for posters of missing pets and they call the owner saying that the pet is at a vet and they would ask for some money. The owner would give them their card details and the person would take more than a few pounds. But they would be stupid to give that information.
I know someone who had her dogs (two red setters) stolen from her car… she then got a ransom demand of £2K and the promise that the dogs would be killed if she called the police… she paid the money and got the dogs back… the transactions were done in an M&S car park.
They were pleased to get the dogs back… I wonder how much of this goes on and no-one gets to know about it
I don’t like the idea of posting rewards for finding lost pets. As was said earlier, too many nasty people who would try to cash in on it by stealing the animal or saying it was killed. Not nice at all.
In my community on FB, there are often lost pets & people put a message on for them to be found. People also, if they find a lost animal, message to say they have found one. Most add photo’s & usually it works. I am sure no money changes hands but maybe flowers or chocolates to say thank you, I would certainly do this if it were my animal who got lost.
There are also organisations who match lost pets with their owners where possible.
