I know about a potential scam ahead of time - what to do?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Background:

The family and I live in a very cool small town. 1500 people or so. One thing that makes it so cool is that there is a vibrant music scene. There are a fair number of professional musicians that live here. There is at least one Grammy award winning artist in town, but chances are you have never heard of her.

Mrs. Retsin is the treasurer for a local charity that benefits the Retsin children’s school. One of the fundraisers for this charity involves the school’s pupil’s collecting money door to door in the community - the classic pledge drive sort of thing; the contributors receive nothing in return.

The year prior to Mrs. Retsin taking over as treasurer one child’s parents took all the cash the child raised and substituted a personal check for the money and turned that in to the charitable organization. The check bounced. A reasonable (but not great) effort was made to collect the funds. The effort failed. It was forgotten.

The following year the same thing happened. Not cool. This is essentially getting your kid to steal from the community under the guise of the charitable organization. Once could just be a mistake; doing it a second time after getting away with it the first time makes me think it was intentional.

The amount of money involved each time was around $250 or so.

The difference is that the second time the charitable organization’s board did not let it slide so easily. After much effort the money that the child collected was received by the charitable organization. The mother of the child hung up on the folks trying to talk to her about it repeatedly. It took great effort the threat of legal action to get the mother to pay although she did eventually pay. There is little doubt in Mrs Retsin’s mind that the child’s mother was trying to keep the money.

This family has since moved about 100 miles or so away from town.

Current situation:

I find out this week that Sunday (tomorrow) night there is a benefit concert for a former town resident who is starting treatment for cancer. It is the mother from the story above. For obvious reasons Mrs. Retsin and I are a little skeptical about this whole thing since this woman has essentially ripped off folks in the name of charity before and tried to do it a second time.

The folks who are organizing the concert are well respected musicians and town residents. I have absolutely no suspicions about them at all. According to the newspaper article about the concert the fundraiser was their idea once they found out about the woman having cancer.

I’m not sure if I should alert the organizer’s somehow about this woman’s past history of using charity to steal money. We have no way to know whether she is really sick or not. She could be sick and if she is I don’t want to stop her from getting help. My motive isn’t revenge in any way. I just don’t want the musicians and other folks in town to get taken advantage of if the story is bullshit. That is not cool. This community often rallies to help folks in need and if that is exploited then next time someone truly in need might not get support.

I don’t know the organizer’s personally and apparently the woman in question does, at least to some degree. If I contact them I would like to figure out a way to do it anonymously.

btw - The concert is going to be awesome for whatever that is worth. I’d really like to go because of who is playing but I probably won’t because of my doubts.

Should I try to alert the organizers of the benefit concert about the woman’s past or let it slide?

2

You can get and email address from gmail or where ever to contact them.

Explain their past and recommend that they make arrangements for the funds to be paid directly against MEDICAL bills that the woman has. Since that is the purpose of the event, that would not go against what they’re trying to do and I’m sure that a person who is genuinely ill would appreciate their medical bills being paid.

3

you could just give them the facts, the check bounced without saying she tried to rip off the charity since you don’t know that that was her intent. Let them choose what they want to do. FWIW sounds to me like she is scaming.

4

I like this idea but these folks are musicians and I don’t see them wanting to deal with any accounting sort of stuff. I should also mention that “benefit concert” probably sounds like a bigger deal than what this is. I would guess that we are talking about funds being raised in the $3K level or so, definitely under $10k. We aren’t talking about huge amounts of money.

I start to think I should raise my suspicions but then I think that I don’t really know she intentionally bounced the checks before and she could really be sick. Just telling other people about the earlier bounced checks besmirches her reputation among people that may consider her a friend and if our suspicions have no merit, well aren’t I a jerk for doing that?. Then I think about the chance that she could be ripping off a town full of folks that are awesome and generous and that I like a whole lot.

Damn moral dilemmas.

5

I’m not sure what your doubts are. In reading what you provided I’m quite confident it was intentional.

6

I would ask to speak with a local detective on the police force, or contact one of those local TV stations and tell them the story. All they would need to do would be to contact the mother organizing this and let them know they intend to do some FOLLOW UP, to ensure the money is being accurately accounted for and spent correctly.

This would be a “nice” warning. If the mother intends to do good, no harm. She could take it as a compliment for her good deeds. If the mother thinks she is pulling off a nice scam, she will know she is being “watched”.

7

this.
But if you email somebody with the accusation–you’ll need to include a LOT of facts and specifics about the previous frauds. Otherwise, nobody will take you seriously–you’ll just seem like a crank or somebody with a grudge looking for personal revenge. And it’s possible that nobody will read your anonymous email–it could get treated like spam, or just ignored.
Also, not likely, but you could conceivably be charged with libel or something.

They may not believe you, anyway. After all, many of us Dopers would not believe an unsolicitated email (or an anonymous post on an internet forum :slight_smile: )

To get them to pay attention, you need to talk to them , not on your own terms, but on theirs…so dont just rant about the past frauds, and how you got your ass burned.
They may not care about your ass, but they will care about their own…

So maybe,instead of issuing them a vague warning that is all about you, suggest that they need to cover their own asses— from the IRS. They are presumably collecting cash at the gate for the performance, but suggest to them that they do not give the cash directly to the fraudster woman. They should write a check directly to the hospital or other registered charity..and demand a receipt to show to the tax man.

8

Thing is, she didn’t need to turn in anything. the charity would have no way to know that her kid actually collected anything. Her kid would know I suppose and there are prizes for collecting certain amounts so maybe that made her feel like she had to turn in something. I’m pretty sure it was intentional but not 100% certain.

I wrote the OP from my point of view so given the facts as I see them it is obvious that she is guilty. Problem is the “facts” aren’t actually certain. It is possible she is just a ditz and accidentally bounced the checks both times and then avoided paying because she was broke. It sure seemed like it was on purpose though. I just don’t know for sure.

The mother is the one who is purported to be sick. Local musicians are organizing the event on her behalf. There is absolutely no way at all in my mind that the people doing the organizing are being anything but completely kind and fabulous people doing a really good thing with fantastic intentions.

If the woman really is sick than in essence I’d be telling people bad things about her that I’m not even 100% sure are true. If she really is sick I want the fundraiser to be a huge success. If this is a scam I want her to rot.

Any law enforcement people know how seriously this would likely be taken if I anonymously raised my concern with the police? Would they check to make sure it is legit? Seems like it might be blown off.

9

What if I contact the organizers and ask to whom I should write a donation check?

I could say something like “I assume you guys are giving the funds you raise directly to a care giver just to be safe and I’d feel better writing my check to them as well.” Perhaps I could even send a link to a story about people pretending to be sick to raise money to justify my concerns. I can’t imagine it would be hard to find such a story,

If they can give me a legit place to send a check I’ll send one. I would imagine if she isn’t being treated they will send the check back and I’ll call the cops.

What do you think?

10

remember, one in three scammers will come down with cancer, as well

11

Exactly. Possible bad behavior doesn’t mean this is a scam. The more I think about it the more I’m convinced I really can’t share my belief that she was ripping off the charity in the past. I’m just not certain enough to do that.

However, if the cancer is a scam I want her brought down hard. I think my plan to try make a donation on her behalf directly to a treatment center is a good one. But I’m curious if anyone sees a problem with it.

12

And for all you know, her kid collected $500 each time and $250 was the lowest she thought she could report without anyone putting it together.

Don’t do anything elaborate. Just call an organizer and say there were some disturbing allegations about her honesty in the past, and they should double check. If she’s making up the whole thing, it should become obvious very quickly once they start to ask questions. Usually scammers like this rely on no one wondering or questioning at all.

13

Good idea, but it’s phrased negatively–you are afraid of something. You may get a better reaction if you phrase it positively: “I will be out of town and cannot attend the performance on that date, but I really,really want to donate–just tell me who to write the check to.”

OOPS–
Something just occurred to me as I type this: it won’t work to expose a fraud.

The organizers will -innocently-ask the fraudster woman where she is being treated. She will give the name of some random hospital, because she has to reply with something. You write a check to the hospital, and they accept your check, just like they accept hundreds of others every year, and deposit in a special fund for buying new carpet. When they have collected enough money to install the carpet, they send you a thank you notice, with a picture of happy nurses and patients, all standing on the pretty new carpet.

In the meantime, the fraudster women took all the cash from the performance night.

14

My thought is that I would include a letter to the hospital explaining that the check is to defray the cost of treatment for this person and maybe even explain my concern in the letter to the hospital asking them to return the check if the person isn’t being treated there. Anyone know if they could do that? Any HIPAA concerns?

15

If I go with this plan I’m kind of thinking I should be a little negative and paranoid in a general sense. I want the organizers to think for a second about the possibility that this is a scam but I don’t want to directly accuse anyone of anything either. It seems to me they will pretty much have to ask the person in question where an anonymous donor should send a check. She either doesn’t answer which should raise a red flag to the organizers or she does answer and I send a check. I’m still not sure that I’d ever find out that it is or isn’t a scam though.

16

I would do nothing.

If she doesn’t really have cancer, she won’t get away with this. If she does, and you “Cry Wolf”, so to speak, you will look like a major dick.

Just let it slide. Enjoy the show. :wink:

17

I’m going with this option.

As someone who was party to in-real-life elaborate cancer fakery by a good friend (although not for profit but he did hoodwink a lot of people, including friends, co-workers, bosses and family - for several months) I can’t believe that anyone would be able to get away with for-profit cancer fakery for long at all within any community.

Online fakers seem to be sussed out quite often too, although I’m sure some get away with it.

That said, I think it’s a great idea to have all monies made payable to a hospital or clinic, rather than to an individual. For one thing, I imagine it would increase donations. I’ve donated to various things like this over the years and I don’t know about anyone else but I am 1000% more likely to do so when it seems clear to me that 100 percent of what I’m donating is going directly to relieve, say, medical bills. *

  • I do understand thatb someone who is having a major health crisis likely needs money for living expenses too. But if I don’t know the person, my comfort level is increased knowing that I’m helping to pay down massive co-pays.
18

I’d explain your direct-donation plan to the police. Then, once you have the name of the hospital, the police can contact the hospital and check out the story. I’m guessing the hospital wouldn’t tell you squat for fear of HIPAA.

For that matter, if you contact the police first, they may be able to confirm the woman’s story directly. Maybe you’re not the first person to be suspicious, and they already looked into it.

How would we know how often they get away with it? Maybe for every exposed online faker, there are 99 who are never found out.

19

True but there have been quite a few online fakers who have been found out, and no IRL fakers than I know of. (You can google this.)

The same could be said for any crime, on- or off-line.

20

Hospitals don’t tell police squat, either.

I say write an anonymous email to the organizers.

And I just want to say grumble grumble god dammit America why do people need to TAKE UP COLLECTIONS for HEALTH CARE in the 21st goddamn century?!?!