Woman arrested for crowdfunding vet bills for dog that was already dead

A 26-year-old woman has been arrested for fundraising “vet bills” for her dog that had already died.

Kanna Sudo from Japan managed to crowdfund a jaw-dropping $16,000 (£11,700), according to a local news outlet Yomiuri Shimbun.

Her dog died in August, according to Asahi News. Since then, Sudo had posted at least three social media updates between October 29 and December 13, saying she hoped her dog would pull through and prompting people for further donations.

The scam was later unveiled when an anonymous tip alerted local police in January. Sudo had no choice but to admit her fraudulent activity after garnering thousands from an online appeal for her retriever that had already passed.

On the lengthy fundraising appeal for her pet, Sudo claimed that she was raising the money to save the 7-month-old pup from his battle with “a severe heart disease.”

“I don’t want to give up because I don’t have enough money,” she said.

ReadyFor

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“Of course, all the support we received during the rest of the recruitment period will be used for Toi’s medical expenses. If the treatment costs listed above do not exceed the amount you have supported, we will use the remainder for future vet examinations and medicines for Toi,” Sudo added in the online fundraiser.

She shared an array of scans and documents to show “a sign of the severity” to encourage donators to help with her alleged vet bills. It prompted them to put forward anything between 500 Japanese yen ($4.30) to 500,000 Japanese yen ($4,367).

The since deleted fundraiser had garnered 407 blissfully unaware donators with a total amount of 1,844,500 Japanese yen (or $16,112).

Fundraising site, Readyfor, told indy100 that “all donors will be refunded.” “Those who donated by bank transfer got their money refunded already. We refunded them on December 27, 2021 by bank transfer.

“Those who donated by credit card payment will get their money refunded by credit card companies.

“We performed the necessary processing to cancel credit card payments on December 22, 2021. It depends on the credit card company when the donors get their money refunded.”

Indy100 has reached out to Nara prefectural police department for comment.