Leitrim Animal Welfare has revealed they were the target of an attempted online scam recently using the name of their late founder.
The well-known animal charity was established in 1997 by Christine Coulson and the Leitrim Animal Welfare Committee, with the centre now running the Leitrim County Dog Pound in conjunction with Leitrim County Council.
The charity confirmed on Facebook an email pretending to be from the organisation was sent to Goodstack, a company that connects non-profit organisations to free supports from major companies such as Google or TikTok.
The fraudulent email was claimed to be sent from the charity's late founder, Christine Coulson, who passed away last year.
The supports include free donation tools to raise funds from the public, free online ads and access to fake email addresses using the name of the charity.
In a statement on Facebook, the centre says that these supports could be used to scam donors, spread misinformation, and cause harm to the work done by the charity.
They've branded the incident as deeply distressing and criminal, and say it has now been reported gardaí to stop what they've branded as the misuse of their name and their founder's memory.
Leitrim Animal Welfare is urging their supporters to only trust updates or donation appeals from their verified accounts and to report any suspicious fundraising activity to gardaí.
