Southfield Almost Home Facebook page hacked

A shelter that helps pets find their forever homes falls on hard times after its Facebook account is hacked.

For 20 years the Almost Home Animal Shelter has operated in Southfield taking in every stray, abandoned or abused dog or cat.

It is a never kill shelter, as opposed to a no kill, which means adoptable or not, the animals are not euthanized. But abiding by that principal is expensive.

"Typically we have maybe 55 to 60 dogs and 35 cats," said Gail Montgomery, the co-founder of the shelter. "Our medical bills are $100,000 a year. People say why you don’t get volunteers to help you. You can't get volunteers here every day to take care of the animals. 

"I have to hire people."

The shelter operates as a charity, so, they turn to Facebook get people invested. Nearly 90 percent of the shelter's funding comes from their social media webpage.

"We have over 60,000 Facebook fans," Montgomery said. "We tell them the happy story and we tell them the sad stories."

But on Saturday the shelter's Facebook page became the story, claiming they were sent an official looking link informing them they were in violation of a policy.

"We panicked," Montgomery said. "Our general manager was so upset, she clicked the link and everything was gone."

They believe it was hackers taking control of their page. Then, a few days later a new page appeared called "No Kill Dogs” and with it went all their Facebook fans.

In the past, dogs were featured on the shelter's Facebook page. That's no longer the case because the hackers have another idea, mocking the shelter and its efforts for unknown reasons.

The shelter has a new Facebook page called "Almost Home No Kill Shelter." But only a handful of people is aware of what's happened.

In the meantime, the shelter has a webpage, AlmostHomeAnimals.org  with instructions on how to donate, while they try to get back what they lost.

To find the new Facebook page, CLICK HERE.