People acquire various forms to swindle others but here in this unique case a man dressed up in a Priest’s outfit went around asking for the donation and later issuing the receipt for the payment to make it look genuine but in reality the story was completely different…
This incident occurred I Mandopa, Navelim and was posted on Facebook group after a person realised the scam that occurred. The defrauder went under the guise of a priest from St. Anthony’s High School in Veroda Cuncolim. This information is known through the “official donation receipt” given by the man after the payment was made, to obviously give weightage to his story.
A new form fraud and money extortion has come into light. A man went around asking for donation dressed as a priest while giving receipts for the payment under the name of an institution.
Once this incident came to light, Rev.Fr. Nelson Cristo Colaco, Parish Priest and manager of St. Anthony’s High School in Veroda Cuncolim sent out a notice about the imposter.
“We have been informed that an imposter going around in Priest’s Cassock to collect funds for our school. He has been in Benaulim & Navelim Parish. No Priest has gone to collect funds from door to door from our Parish,” said the notice.
With so many new ways of people committing fraud it is hard for one to be able to trust anything that comes their way, even if genuine. If somebody could impersonate a priest it begs the question of what all has been faked by numerous people in various disguises. Thankfully in this case the Parish caught wind of the scam and cleared the issue from their end reducing the chances of fraud of similar kind.
In other cases, people and organisations get dragged into the muck for their imposter’s actions. Genuine cases suffer due to lack of trust from the people.
This is an extremely serious issue that needs to be dealt with. To avoid such frauds, people need to learn to cross reference with the organisations and the people, check for any official notices about donations put up before they give money etc.
In recent times as life gets harder, people continue to resort to dishonest means of gaining money. The people and police must be alert to avoid more scams, frauds like these. Immediately alerting authorities when something is found fishy will help in reducing, if not stopping, these acts of crime.
