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When raising money, you need to be very ethical or it can cause a lot of problems and ruin trust in your organization.

What would you do if your friend asked if she could take pictures of your dog to use in her animal rescue fund raiser, and you agreed, but then you discovered that in the fund raiser, they were portraying your dog as having been abandoned and neglected?

That is what happened to the person in this story, and while she is glad they are raising money, she didn’t want her dog being shown as abandoned. When her friend wouldn’t take the fund raiser down, she commented on it saying it was misleading, which got her friend in trouble.

Her friend really should have been clear with her before taking the pictures. Read through the full story here and see what you think she should have done.

AIO for publicly debunking a false claim my friend was raising money for?

My friend volunteers with a small local animal rescue and asked if she could use my dog for some photos because she’s photogenic. I said sure.

Wow, what a scam.

A few days later, she posted a fundraiser and I immediately saw my dog in the main photo.

The caption said she’d been found abandoned, underweight and scared of people, and that donations were needed for her recovery and medical care.

This is essential deceptive marketing.

None of that was true. I’ve had her since she was a puppy. She’s healthy, spoiled and currently asleep on a $90 dog bed next to me.

I called her immediately and asked why they were using my dog with a completely fake story. She said the story was basically a composite of several dogs they’d actually rescued and they needed a strong photo to get people to donate.

She doesn’t want to be involved with this.

I told her respectfully to take the post down.

She said she couldn’t because the fundraiser had already started getting attention and changing the photo or story would look suspicious.

This isn’t a decision she had the right to make.

She kept saying the money really was going toward rescued animals, so it shouldn’t matter that the dog in the photo wasn’t actually the one from the story.

I waited a bit thinking she’d reconsider, but the post stayed up and more people kept donating.

Maybe she should have thought all this through before running the campaign.

So, I commented under it saying that was my dog, she had never been abandoned or abused, and I had only agreed to let them take some photos of her.

The fundraiser got paused a few hours later. Now she’s angry because people started asking questions and requesting refunds, and apparently the rescue director is blaming her for the whole thing.

Nah, let them donate money then.

A couple friends think I should’ve handled it privately and that actual animals are now losing out because I exposed a fake story that wasn’t hurting my dog.

AIO??

If her friend had explained what they were doing from the beginning, she could have decided whether she wanted to be a part of it or not. The fact that she didn’t shows that her friend was intentionally deceptive.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say.

Using ‘models’ in advertisements like this is common.

Here is someone who thinks she was overreacting.

This person says she wouldn’t give them money.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about siblings who don’t think they should have to give up their own sports’ seasons to help with their younger siblings.

It is weird that they were deceptive about this.

If they have to lie, there is a problem.

She should have been honest and up front about this from the beginning. It isn’t inherently wrong to use a ‘model’ dog, but she shouldn’t have been deceptive about it.