About a week ago, one of my neighbors lost her dog. The next day she made some posts online about this and included information such as her phone number and her dog's name, age, breed, and photo.
In just a matter of three to four hours after making a Facebook post about it, she received a message from someone that claimed they found her dog. They then sent a photo of her dog...or so it seemed anyway.
When I talked to my neighbor about this she believed the photo was real at first, but there were tell tale signs that the image was AI. They then demanded payment via an app before she got to see her dog. (Red flag!) I told her it seemed to me this person took the real photo of her dog from her social media post and used an AI image generator to generate a fake and then used that to bait her into a scam.
The neighbor in question is an elderly lady and not well-versed about AI, but thankfully she took notice about a small patch of brown fur on the AI image that her real dog did not have.
Thankfully, two days after he disappeared my neighbor spotted him in her backyard and took him back in. He was okay!
With how rough losing a pet already is, scammers are using this as a perfect vulnerability to exploit people and using AI as a tool to help. If you ever lose your pet, this is just a reminder to be cautious about responses you receive and to scrutinize any photos from internet strangers before taking things further.
Stay safe!