Bay Area Wag! dog sitter warns others about third-party scammers on platform

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A South Bay woman says she got scammed on an dog sitting app by someone posing as a pet parent.

From walking to boarding to sitting, the Wag! platform connects pet parents with pet caregivers.

"Working with animals, it just boosts my spirit and using Wag, it allows me to do that," said Bria, who asked that we not use her last name. She says, however, Wag! connected her to someone with ulterior motives.

"Someone posed as a potential pet parent," Bria explained.

Bria says the potential pet parent asked to speak with her by phone off the app, which she now realizes was a red flag. She gave her number, only later the person who called claimed to be someone else entirely.

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Miranda Fulks says she was horrified to watch security footage of a man she trusted to care for her dog, Olly, abusing him instead.

"He's posing as a Wag! representative and needed to verify my information," said Bria.

Bria gave over her login information and account details which she believes the caller used to access her account and switch her payout method to another bank account. She ultimately lost close to $200.

"Wag! is saying they can't help refund the money, Stripe was saying they can't help refund the money," she explained.

"Stripe was saying Wag! has to do it because that's the business that I'm with, but Wag! is saying Stripe has to do it because they're the third party that processed the payments," Bria continued.

In an emailed statement, Wag! tells ABC7 News, "While there has been no breach of Wag!'s systems, we have become aware that third-party scammers have attempted to obtain passwords from a pet caregiver in an attempt to access sensitive information."

Wag! says it alerted its community about the scam via email messages, push notifications, help center articles and content within the app. Also that representatives of the company will never ask for confidential bank or account information or passwords.

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An East Bay woman shared photos of her dog, who she says was left injured and alone for five hours after she hired a dog walker.

"I mainly just want to spread awareness to let them know that this is going on. Something needs to be done and yeah, you guys should help us recover our funds whether it's through Wag! or Stripe," said Bria.

She says she filed a police report and says she read stories online about other victims. Wag! tells the I-Team it can't disclose specific information, but can confirm incidents such as this are extremely rare.

Wag! also says accounts who have been flagged for social engineering activity are banned from the platform.

The I-Team reached out to Stripe's media relations but has not yet heard back.

As for Bria, she says she'll continue boarding and sitting other people's pets, more carefully.

"It's a blessing for me as well as me being a blessing to them," said Bria.

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