(with video below) This is not something you see every day. First, over 80,000 people were evacuated from the Canadian city of Fort McMurray after a massive fire destroyed nearly the whole town. Right away, thousands of heroes jumped in to help those in need with money, clothes, food, and accommodation. Let alone the hundreds of firefighters who fought the beast, and continue to do it, as the fire moved from the province of Alberta into Saskatchewan.
Now imagine this: while many people ‘adopted' evacuees into their homes, a young 24-year old Chelsea Robinson took in no less than 23 of them! Into a small townhouse! Having a big heart, Chelsea offered her place to a bunch of strangers for an unlimited time –and this time is not hours or days. It's probably going to be months until everyone will be back into their houses.
But that's just a small part of the story. When she put up the ad on Kijiji and Facebook offering accommodation for evacuees, she was contacted by someone who claimed to be from Fort McMurray, only she wasn't. Without questioning, Chelsea opened her door to this lady. Little did she know that within a couple of days her guest would fake her death and cause a series of troubles. How did that happen?
Watch the video below to see Chelsea Robinson explaining in detail (and pics) what just happened: -video includes images of the full house and fake death related messages:
As you can see, scams taking advantage of the good people trying to help continue. If you are still donating or contributing in any way for the Fort MacMurray evacuees, make sure you ask for ID. There is no shame in that.
For the time being, the safest place to donate towards the victims of the Fort McMurray fires is through the real Red Cross website. You can visit the Red Cross Alberta Fires Emergency Appeal page and donate HERE. You can also the Twitter account of the Red Cross Canada HERE.
How to report the Donations For The Fort McMurray Fire Victims scam:
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My experience with a scammer was on Facebook. I was friend requested by a Sharon Clayton, I didn’t think I knew the person so I asked in a message. Immediately the scam began…the person asked if I’d been contacted by the CFDA, that they saw my name on a list while an agent of the CFDA was delivering them $250,000.00. This person wanted to make sure I had got my money, too!! The person basically begged me to friend and message this "agent". I had a hard time containing myself so we never got to the "just need your bank account number…or just send $2,500.00 to get your…."
I did report the 2 different profiles to Facebook. I also spoke with another victim, he did get far enough into it that these people were gonna show up at his house to get the money.
It’s really awful how these people operate!!
I would like to suggest that perhaps people could consider giving to either the Salvation Army or Samaritan’s purse, or even the University that was housing over 1000 people and feeding them three meals a day. Rumor has it that not all the money collected by the Red Cross will actually get to the people who need it.