It’s challenging enough for small non-profits to collect donations without scammers knocking on doors pretending to represent them, the executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Spryfield said yesterday.
“When somebody goes around and is falsifying like that, it makes it harder when we do do fundraising,” Darlene MacLean told Metro Halifax. “It also makes it hard because the people that are being swindled are less apt to give in the future.”
MacLean said the club received two phone calls recently from two residents who were approached by two young canvassers who claimed to be members of the non-existent Boys and Girls Club of Halifax. They reportedly asked one man for cash that would support their swim-a-thon, but he refused because “he just got kind of a funny feeling about the young fella.”
Another woman didn’t catch on until it was too late and handed $20 over to support the false cause.
“Normally, we won’t go door-to-door,” MacLean said, adding residents can always ask for a lottery licence or charity registration number, adding anything the eight Boys and Girls Clubs across Nova Scotia distribute “always has our logo on it.”
Halifax Regional Police spokeswoman Theresa Rath confirmed yesterday that investigators started looking into “possible fraud” after receiving a call from the Boys and Girls Club last week
“We remind people to be vigilant about asking people for identification,” she said.
