Buddy Fingers was diagnosed with a rare condition called Sturge Weber Syndrome when he was seven months old. With the rare disease, comes seizures that sometimes lasts for hours which can affect his cognitive development and mobility.
"On his bad days he could be having some clinical ones and those are the ones you can't see, he functions fine whenever he is having a seizure," Buddy's Mom, Jessica Fingers said.
Buddy's family reached out to the Central Texas Community a little over a year ago to help him get a service dog for the seizures he battles.
"They alert people whenever the person is having a seizure, they are supposed to comfort the person, they are supposed to retrieve medications," Jessica said.
The dogs don't come cheap though which is why the Fingers family turned to the Central Texas Community to help with the $12,000 price tag.
"People came and showed us love and they poured out, not only their heart, but their money," Jessica said.
Buddy was supposed to get that dog in June, but their family is now out thousands of dollars and Buddy doesn't have his dog.
Jessica said she paid the Ohio based company, M&R Working Dogs in March of 2018 and never got her dog.
"A few days later someone posted on Google that they went out of business and shut their business down which is when I hopped on everything, but they wouldn't answer my phone calls, I would text them, everything," Jessica said.
Even when Central Texas News Now gave it a try, we got an automated response that said the telephone number was temporarily not in service.
Since Jessica was scammed out of her son's Golden Retriever, Chase, she has found that there are several others that have been scammed by the same Ohio company.
The other families include one in California, Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Minnesota, Maryland and three others in Texas.
The Franklin County Sherriff's Department in Ohio confirmed there is an open investigation into the company.
The Ohio Attorney General's Office also said they have received 11 complaints as of Aug. 9th and will be looking into the matter.
Jessica said they have stayed in contact with the other families affected and combined, they have lost a total of $160,000 to the scam.
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