Big bill after being taken advantage of by another rescue.

Hey everyone,

As some of you may know, I’ve just started my own cat rescue here in Leeds. I’ve been rescuing cats since I was 16, and now at 45, I decided it was time to make it official and open my own. Throughout the years, I’ve volunteered with three different rescues—some better than others, but none worse than the last one I volunteered for. I won’t name names. 

Unfortunately, my experience with this last rescue was far from positive. They took advantage of me and my vets. I’ve always had a charity discount at my vets, and when I joined this “rescue,” I allowed them to use the discount via myself for the cats rescued/re homed in Leeds. I was supposed to be running the Leeds branch, as agreed with the founder. I built a Facebook page with over 400 members, but things started to change when I insisted on doing face-to-face home checks for the cats I was rescuing.

Everything seemed fine until May, when I noticed I wasn’t receiving invoices from the vets. It turned out that someone had changed the contact email to one I had no access to, making it difficult for me to manage the bills. After sorting it out with the vets, I found myself with a bill of over £800, which is now thankfully down to £588.

Despite my attempts to reach out to the founder and the admin team, I’ve received no response. To make matters worse, they even took the six cats I had in rescue here in Leeds—four kittens (two of whom have since been rehomed), their feral mother, and a terminally ill cat who has also been rehomed.

This experience is what pushed me to open my own rescue, and so far, it’s going really well. However, I still need to clear this bill, which isn’t fair given that they received all the adoption fees for the cats I now owe for.

If you can help—even with just a pound—it would make a huge difference. Not only would it help clear this bill, but it would also support the growth of my rescue. Even sharing this post would be a big help.

Thank you from myself and all the kitties at Marla’s Cat Rescue. You can also donate directly to the vets:

White Cross Vets, Street Lane, Leeds