Greg's Corner

Grim donation scam plagues intersections

By Greg Collier

If you’ve driven any amount of time in the US, you’ve undoubtedly seen roadside donations taking place at a certain intersection. Often you’ll see the local fire department out collecting donations to help combat childhood diseases. They’re usually easy to identify since it’s clear who they are from their uniforms. Sometimes you might see a local civic group having a collection drive for any number of reasons. Again, they usually have plenty of signage identifying their organization and what they’re collecting for. But what if you saw a group of people collecting donations for a child’s funeral? Would you toss them a couple of bucks? If you answered yes, you may want to reconsider that donation.

Recently, we’ve seen reports from various parts of the country where scammers are allegedly setting up shop in busy intersections. They’re said to be holding signs asking for donations to help pay for a teenage girl’s funeral. Or it could also be for the funeral of a young boy. However, the constant theme among all of the scams is the scammers have claimed they need money for a child’s funeral.

And when we say, it’s happening in different parts of the country, we mean it. We have reports from Western Massachusetts, Southern California, Missouri, and another report from Southern California. While we don’t think the scammers are connected, it can’t be coincidence that these scams have sprung up all around the same time. It’s reminiscent of all the fake violinists who started appearing in parking lots across the country.

Scammers will use every dirty trick in the book to either lull you into a sense of panic or pull on your heartstrings to try to get your money. And there’s nothing sadder than a funeral for a child to elicit a few donations on the street. However, a funeral scam is probably one of the lowest scams that someone can pull.