What a purr-fect cat-astrophe.
A Canadian couple is being hounded with calls about their missing cat — and all because their number was splashed across a t-shirt decorated with a poster of a lost cat by a brand 3,000 miles away on Long Island.
Jonathan McCurrach and Natasha Lavoie’s phone has been on fire with strangers calling to tell them they’ve found their feline, Torbo.
However, the British Columbian couple doesn’t even have a cat named Torbo. Their furry friend is Mauser, and he’s happily chilling at home.
“Sometimes, like six times a day, I’m getting these really random phone calls and people leaving me voicemails saying that they found my cat and they want money for my cat,” Lavoie told CBC News.
“I’m like, ‘My cat’s at home in the air conditioning.’”
At first, the pair thought the calls, which mainly came from the U.S., were scams.
“When we started actually picking up the calls or responding to the voicemails, I thought it was some attempt at a scam. You hear about scams all the time about missing pets,” McCurrach told the outlet.
“Half the time, they just cut you off and go like, ‘No, I’ve got your cat. I want the money for the cat.’ And I’m like, ‘No, there’s no money, there’s no cat.’ And they usually hang up.”
After months of their phone ringing off the hook, McCurrach finally asked a caller how they got their number.
The caller explained their digits were printed on the t-shirt, made by the contemporary clothing company Wisdumb, based in Smithtown, NY.
CBC News reached out the business, which reported the shirt was no longer available for purchase online, and said in an email that “the use of a real number within the art created was not intentional.”
The couple also contacted the company, which offered them a similar answer, but no “real apology.”
Lavoie said she’s not ready to change her number because it has a 604 area code, British Columbia’s first, which is now difficult to get.
“I’ve had my number for 20 years,” she told the outlet firmly.
“I don’t want to change it. I’ll just keep not answering.”
Lavoie thinks purr-haps she deserves compensation for the aggravation the clothing has caused.
“I feel like I deserve a T-shirt after this,” she added. “I think we both do.”
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