How not to be a lemming
| December 26, 2016 | Posted by Melinda under Vet & Sports Medicine |
Pet owner: My pet has a horrible medical problem, it’s all some else’s fault and I need money to pay for it!!!!!!!
Enter stage left: Go Fund Me to the rescue!!!!!!!! Post your sob story here and make thousands off of kind hearted animal lovers!
Pet owner: mmm…..
Hundreds of click happy people: That’s awful, let’s share share SHARE!
—————————————————————————————–
Except….the pet doesn’t really have a problem. And I guarantee you that *someone* is going to connect some dots and forward it to the vets involved, and let me tell you what’s going to happen.
First off, because it’s Christmas fucking day, the vet is going to have an extra glass of wine even as she realizes there is not enough wine in the bottle to recapture one little bit of the peace she should be feeling on Christmas and she’s going to start making phone calls.
She’s going to call the clinic that you went to and leave a message for the office manager and on-call vet to call her back. Because once they find out there’s a $10K go-fund-me campaign with alleged statements from their clinic about how they are helping you file board complaints I GUARANTEE you that is going to catch their attention.
And then she’s going to fret for 12 hours wondering if there’s any possible way that a mistake was made in a very routine procedure while her vet friends reassure her that something sounds very very fishy and doesn’t add up.
And sure enough when she gets the call back from the other clinic’s vet…..guess what. It really doesn’t add up after all.
Because basically everything you’ve posted is a complete and utter lie.
And the vet is going to feel really relieved because through official channels such as the board or the courts you will absolutely be seen as a fraud and her license and livelihood will remain intact.
Silly little vet. She has underestimated the power (and stupidity) of social media!
It’s no longer her license and livelihood at stake, but it’s still frustrating and infuriating as all hell to watch the proverbial circus, especially as the stories pour in from her colleagues about the sheer number of similar frauds that have taken place.
So the little vet pours herself (yet) another glass of wine and tries once again to remind people that fact-checking is ***REALLY*** important before sharing or contributing to something. And if things don’t seem to add up they probably don’t. And if things don’t make sense it’s because they are probably wrong.
No one is going to save you from your own stupidity or other people’s motives except yourself and it’s REALLY hard to get something removed from social media even if it’s completely false. So be smart. Don’t be a lemming.
PS. Some day I’ll be able to write about all the wild and wacky things I’ve seen in the vetmed field but for now this one will be added to the growing “unbloggable but maybe some day” folder.
GoFundMe needs to go away. Yes, there are a few legitimate causes. A bunch of scams. And they charge a ton, so it’s not even efficient. Sounds like an entertaining story though lol
I had a friend helped by one and it was wonderful. But now I don’t think I would donate without personally knowing the situation.
My “Unbloggable but maybe someday” folder basically is all of my drafts at the moment, and the vast majority are about vet med. I’m sorry you had to go through this particular one! Ugh what a mess!!!
You have no idea how hard it is for me not to go into the bizarre and ludicrous details of the whole situation, but I have yet to post something I had to pull down and I probably shouldn’t start now.