Frequently Asked Questions

Because of other dishonest companies in the industry (like Pet Amber Alert), and the nature of a lost pet service essentially being intangible advertising, this has become a common concern among the pet community and our customers.

—-We stand by our service 100%!—–

Most of our competitors do not provide any proof of the services you paid for.. this is unfortunate and questionable. The team at MyLostPetAlert provides you a complete list of neighbors/vets/shelters that have been contacted including the name, address, and phone # – this is for your verification, and is available to you via your online account. Unlike other companies, you do not need to request it!

Our Facebook Advertising is also very real and has directly contributed to hundreds of pet’s being reunited. Some companies will tell you they do a “social media blast”, yet simply post on their Instagram/Facebook/Twitter…. this is very dishonest and completely useless to your search! Facebook has recently launched a page that offers transparency into what ADS a business is running, so you can know 100% that we are purchasing advertising for your lost pet (please, check out competitors too!):
https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/

It’s important to keep expectations in check though – not every neighbor can be called, not every vet/shelter can be faxed, and Facebook has ultimate control over how and when ads are displayed to people in the local area.

This is great news! To report your pet as reunited, simply visit your account dashboard and click “Cancel Alert”. This will update the status on our website and on any social media posts, and cancel any pending phone calls or faxes as well.

Thank you for trying to help – unfortunately, we are not a directory for found animals. Please search our website to see if the animal you have found is someone’s pet. Also, be sure the animal is indeed lost as some pets are allowed to roam by their owners! For more information, read our article “Found Dog or Cat? Try These Important Tips!”

Due to the expedient nature of our alert service, as soon as you place an order we incur immediate costs that cannot be refunded. Please contact our support if you wish to discuss a payment issue!

By partnering with one of the nation’s largest business & consumer marketing list companies (the same one used by many political candidates), we are able to reach thousands of home phones in a radius around where your pet was last seen. We of course cannot guarantee that every neighbor will be called, but the quality of our data is as good as it gets!

This depends on how many houses per square mile and the package you choose, but typically our alert coverage is between 0.5 miles to 3 miles. We start with the closest homes and expand in a radius outward, so choosing a larger package simply means an expanded search area.

Not to worry – if the call is not answered, we leave a voicemail! We will retry busy numbers up to 5 times.

We know time is of the essence and work very fast! We typically can process phone alerts within 1 hour, but please allow up to 3 hours in instances of high demand. Our processing hours are 8am to 8pm PST, and depending on how late in the day you order the phone calls may not go out until the next morning (see calling hours below).

To comply with telephony rules and common courtesy – pet alert phone calls are made between 10am and 8pm relative to the area’s time zone.

While other companies only provide a report when you ask for it (and with limited information), we provide a complete report of everyone called including their first name, address, and phone number. You can access it easily via your account dashboard.

Because our calls are purely informational in nature, our calls are exempt from the Do No Call requirements set by the FTC – we are not telemarketers.

While it is rare for you to be called more than once, if you wish to no longer receive calls like this from us in the future, you can submit your phone number via this opt-out form.

A post about your lost pet is shown to people located in as little as 1 mile (radius) of the exact address your pet went missing – depending on the population density and package you choose of course.

Facebook also allows us to target people based on whether they live in the area or are just traveling – we almost always target people “living in the area”.

To learn more about how Facebook knows where a person is located, hear it straight from the horses mouth.

Without Facebook Advertising, a post made about your lost pet is only going to be seen by your friends and maybe their friends – even businesses that offer to post on their page for free will do little good (unless someone just happens to come across the post).

With Facebook Advertising, we create a post on our page and then pay Facebook to have it displayed to people that live around where your pet went missing – it will especially reach people that may have seen your pet, but are not actively looking for the owner. A single sighting of your pet can make all the difference in focusing your search.

While it’s easy to click your pet’s photo and contact you via our website, not everyone does that – someone may choose to leave a basic comment like “I saw this cat last night in my yard”. To ensure that you receive these kind of comments simply comment on the post yourself – this will turn on Facebook notifications for that post. If you do not have a Facebook account you should check the post daily, as we do not actively monitor comments made on our posts!

Do not be concerned – your lost pet alert is being seen by people in the area, but it takes time. Facebook has likely decided that another business’s ad is more relevant to display to you at this time (how ads work) – you probably didn’t even notice the other advertisements you were exposed to as they look very natural. With people checking their Facebook page an average of 14 times per day, and the average person being exposed to hundreds of ads per day, it’s not something to worry about.

There are also other factors that come into play that may cause you to never see the post in your news feed. For example: Facebook is not able to confidently determine your location, or you’ve already engaged with the post today, or you’re not seeing Facebook ads at all (adblockers). Remember, Facebook ultimately decides (optimally) when and who to show the post to.
https://www.facebook.com/business/help/224325004246343

While # of likes/comments/shares are public, the number of people who have viewed your lost pet advertisement is not. Our staff would be happy to provide you a screenshot of the engagement statistics from our Facebook account – please email [email protected] with your request!

We have the most advanced and complete method of contacting vets and shelters in the area via fax. First, we scan Google Maps for all the shelters and vets in the area. We then check each one’s website for their fax information. If it is not found, it is checked against our own proprietary database of over 30,000 pet related businesses obtained from business sources (as sometimes the fax numbers are private). Keep in mind that not every vet and shelter owns a fax machine – we highly recommend calling as well.

Keep in mind – it’s not possible to send every vet/shelter a fax! We check the websites of every vet/shelter in the area, and our own proprietary database with the help of pet insurance companies, in order to create a list of faxable vets & shelters. Unfortunately, many vets and shelters either do not have a fax number or they do not want to share this information or be faxed our flyers. 

In some cases a fax may have failed to deliver due to technical problems (for example, the vet only turns off their fax machine at night, which is uncommon), and in these cases the vet/shelter will not be listed on your report. A vet/shelter may have already asked to be put on our ignore list, and we respect those requests as well.

If you have a vet or shelter that you would like us to fax, just shoot us an email over at [email protected] with the name, address, and fax number of the business – we’re happy to fax them for you 🙂

We can fax flyers to pet related businesses within a 35+ mile radius of your missing pet – any larger than this is effectively a waste of resources and a burden on vets. You may wish to do multiple alerts for different areas to get around this.

A common misunderstanding is that number included in your package is guaranteed, which is not the case – 35 faxes, such as in the “Bark” package, are an “up to” amount. We gather as many vet/shelters that we can fax (up to the limit), and then attempt to fax them your lost pet flyer. The package you select, the population of the area, the vets/shelters in your area, and the success of delivery are all factors that can affect how many vets/shelters we can fax for you.

If a fax fails to deliver for a technical reason (for example, the fax is turned off or sends back a busy signal), then the vet/shelter is removed from your report – this can lead to a shorter list.