A scam aimed at people who have lost a pet is spreading in the UK, and it works because artificial intelligence has made the one piece of proof an owner wants — a photograph — trivial to fabricate.
The pattern is consistent. Someone contacts an owner claiming to have found the animal, sends a convincing picture of it, invents a reason to be sympathetic, and asks for a reward. When the owner hesitates or asks questions, the demands escalate into threats to sell or kill the pet.
Three owners, the same script
Stephanie Young, a foster carer from Birmingham, lost her cat Buddy from her garden in September last year. A woman calling herself Melissa sent an image of him, said she had been feeding him, and asked for reward money for her autistic grandchildren. Young was “100% certain” it was Buddy and went to the bank.
Melissa never appeared at the meeting point, refused cash, and pushed for 100 Apple gift cards. When Young worked out the images were AI-generated and said so, threats to “sell or murder” the cat followed. Thirteen months on, Buddy has not been found.
“I’m not going to deny that every inch of your body wants that cat back,” she said. “They can hook you, the more they ask the more you think ‘I better do it’.”
Cam Chauhan, a supermarket worker from Wednesbury, was sent an “exact picture” of her cat Creed nine months after he went missing, and was asked for a £200 Apple gift card — again, for the sender’s autistic children. She described grabbing the cat bag from the garage and saying “let’s go get my cat back”. Her daughters raised doubts before any money changed hands.
Sarah Robinson from Northampton was contacted by a man calling himself Kherson H, who sent an image of her cat Cookie outside a window and then demanded £40,000 with a money transfer link. When she refused, he threatened to kill the cat. “It’s horrible, because you know it’s not real but you’re terrified it might be,” she said.
Why it works
Every element of this scam existed before AI. What changed is the evidence. Producing a photograph of a specific animal in a plausible garden used to require either the animal or real skill; now it requires a prompt.
Dr Rasha Kassem, a senior academic at Aston University, said AI now plays a “major role” in online fraud because things that were technically difficult are “super easy, accessible and free”. Her warning is the one to remember: “Just because it looks genuine, doesn’t make it real.”
She said criminals deliberately manufacture urgency, and advised people not to rush into sending money. She also advised against engaging at all: collect what information you can and report it.
Fraud in the UK has surged as criminals adopt the technology, with almost £1.3bn stolen by scammers in 2025.
The gift card is the tell
Two of these three demands were for Apple gift cards, and that detail is diagnostic. Gift cards are the preferred instrument of a scammer for one reason: once the codes are read out, the money is gone and no bank can reverse it. A genuine finder has no use for them.
What to do instead
All three owners reported what happened to Report Fraud, run by City of London Police, which advises arranging to see the animal in person before any money changes hands.
Pawboost, a free service for tracking missing pets, recommends asking for a short video or a video call showing a specific feature of your pet rather than a still image; arranging to meet in a safe public place to confirm who the person is; and asking a question only someone holding the animal could answer, such as what collar it was wearing.
The common thread is that a still photograph is now the weakest possible evidence, and the only one these scams can supply.
