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Central Florida wildlife rescue falls victim to podcast scam, warns others

Little Bit Wildlife Rescue is based in Mount Dora

MOUNT DORA, Fla. – Nestled in the backyard of a Mount Dora home is a sanctuary for injured and sick animals. It’s the only Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission-certified rehabilitator in Lake County, but recently, it became the target of a scam.

“This is why I do what I do. I mean, look at that. How can you not love that?” said Elizabeth McAleenan, co-founder of Little Bit Wildlife Rescue, as she held a baby raccoon in her hand.

“The end goal is to raise them until they’re the appropriate size to be released and to survive on their own,” McAleenan explained.

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While some animals live out their lives with McAleenan and her husband, most return to the wild to thrive, a goal the nonprofit can’t achieve alone.

“Without the donations, it’s out of pocket, which we couldn’t afford to keep all the animals that we do because it is expensive to feed them all and to give them formula, caging,” McAleenan said.

Their main source of donations has been their Little Bit Wildlife Rescue Facebook page, but earlier this month, a hacker took control, putting everything on hold.

“So, we went from half a million followers down to nothing,” McAleenan laments.

She believes she was the victim of a podcast scam after receiving an invite to feature the rescue, something she’s done countless times before.

“They gave me the name of somebody that’s a podcaster. I researched them, I don’t want to put the name out there, but it sounded legit. Then we set up a Zoom call so that we would go over everything that would be discussed.”

Shortly after, her followers started to dwindle, and when the alleged podcaster never followed up, she realized what happened.

The scammers didn’t solicit money or try to extort her but posed as her nonprofit.

“I don’t really understand what they were doing. It’s like they took all the followers for some reason, and then they started another page with those followers,” McAleenan said. “They just keep restarting new pages with the name of my rescue.”

Now, they’re accepting donations on GoFundMe and their website, LittleBitWildlifeRescue.org.

“We have our wish list up there which is linked to Amazon and Chewy. We also have a Walmart one,” McAleenan noted.

While they work to boot the hackers, McAleenan is sending a warning to others about this sophisticated scam.

“Be careful. Do your research. I sadly, I did not, I thought that they were legitimate, and they were not they were not,” she said “And don’t be afraid to follow the page when we get it back up and running. We will let people know when they can start following it again.


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About the Author
Stephanie Rodriguez headshot

Stephanie joined News 6 as a reporter in October 2024.

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