Teh One Who Knocks
04-25-2011, 06:45 PM
The Orlando Sentinel
Sanford police are looking for two men who took $400 from a woman in the parking lot of the Walmart on Rinehart Road in a "money-blessing" scam.
The men were inside the store at 1601 Rinehart Road on Wednesday morning and looking for people who were leaving with cash from the bank inside the store, police said.
They followed a bank customer with money into the parking lot. One of them approached her and asked if she knew how to get to a Baptist church, where he wanted to make a donation. He also asked her to donate, but she said no.
Then the other man walked up and started asking questions about making donations to a church and they confused the woman, who was somehow convinced to let them into her car.
That's when one man pulled out what appeared to be a large amount of money. He asked the woman to prove she was trustworthy enough to donate his money for him.
At some point, the woman put her money with his on a "prayer cloth" and they blessed the money.
"They told the victim to deliver the money just like this, folded up in the prayer cloth,'' police said in a report. After the men left, she looked into the cloth and realized her money was gone and all that remained was his "money" — cut up newspaper.
"This is a horrible scam playing on victim's willingness to donate money to a church,'' Sanford police said in a statement.
Sanford police are looking for two men who took $400 from a woman in the parking lot of the Walmart on Rinehart Road in a "money-blessing" scam.
The men were inside the store at 1601 Rinehart Road on Wednesday morning and looking for people who were leaving with cash from the bank inside the store, police said.
They followed a bank customer with money into the parking lot. One of them approached her and asked if she knew how to get to a Baptist church, where he wanted to make a donation. He also asked her to donate, but she said no.
Then the other man walked up and started asking questions about making donations to a church and they confused the woman, who was somehow convinced to let them into her car.
That's when one man pulled out what appeared to be a large amount of money. He asked the woman to prove she was trustworthy enough to donate his money for him.
At some point, the woman put her money with his on a "prayer cloth" and they blessed the money.
"They told the victim to deliver the money just like this, folded up in the prayer cloth,'' police said in a report. After the men left, she looked into the cloth and realized her money was gone and all that remained was his "money" — cut up newspaper.
"This is a horrible scam playing on victim's willingness to donate money to a church,'' Sanford police said in a statement.