Emotional support animal fraud hurts those who need them

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Airline passengers who falsely claim their pets as emotional support animals make it difficult for others who truly need them.

Carrie Green doesn’t look like a disabled veteran.

But the petite blonde from Naples wants everyone to know invisible wounds are still very real.

During Green’s seven years in the Army, she was in a helicopter crash and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Nearly two decades later, traveling by plane is still extremely difficult without her emotional support animal, a Chihuahua Pug mix named Sookie.

“When [other passengers] think of your typical disabled veteran, they think of a big bulky guy like you see in the movies who may have a prosthetic leg. I look like your typical healthy 44-year-old woman, and you can’t see my wounds,” she said.

Public perception of people travelling with emotional support animals is difficult, as characterized by the vicious behavior of online commenters and airport travelers, Green said.

Initially, the airlines would even give Green trouble about her documentation from the VA certifying that she needed Sookie to fly, she said.

Eventually, someone suggested she get a certificate and a letter online, Green said. The airlines readily accepted those letters more than her documents from the government.

But the increase of people travelling with ESA’s whether or not they need them, is likely due to how easily such letters can be obtained, an airline industry representative said.

The airline industry expressed concerns about passengers fraudulently representing their pets as emotional support animals to WINK News investigative reporter Lauren Sweeney.

A WINK News investigation later found that those letters can be obtained by filling out online questionnaires without seeing or speaking to a mental health professional.

“I don’t even understand how that is legal,” said Cindy Schoyer, whose doctor wrote a letter of support for her to fly with her dogs after her husband passed away.

The North Port widow explained when she flew back from her husband’s funeral in June, the airline prohibited her from taking her Pomeranion out of his carrier under the seat.

“I just cried. I felt so empty,” she said.

Both Schoyer and Green said who people who want to get their pets a free ride by claiming them as emotional support animals negatively affects emotionally and physically disabled people who need truly their animals.