People are collecting funeral money on Tri-Cities corners for a child. Is it a scam?
A street corner effort to raise money to bury a child who died of cancer may be taking advantage of passing drivers.
Four people with signs were out Monday on the corners at the Kennewick intersection of Highway 395 and Kennewick Avenue seeking donations from passersby. And there were social media reports that they’d also been seen recently in other busy Tri-Cities intersections.
Their signs show a picture of a boy in a hospital bed and ask for funeral expenses for a child identified as a 12-year-old named Gabriel.
The Tri-City Herald hasn’t been able to confirm that it is a scam, but neither the Tri-City funeral homes nor the Benton and Franklin county coroners have a record of a child named Gabriel recently dying of cancer.
When the Tri-City Herald approached one of the sign holders, she said she’d come from California, but declined to answer more questions about the boy or the funeral.
Several people on the Tri-Cities subreddit claimed it was a scam that had popped up in several areas across the region.
“They were in Richland this weekend,” a commenter wrote. “Was really set out weird too. Cancer didn’t give this kid a chance, so give us money for the funeral. No GoFundMe, no last name, no way to verify anything.”
Another person reported seeing them a few months ago at the corner of Canal Drive and Columbia Center Boulevard.
Kennewick police Sgt. Chris Littrell told the Herald it’s unclear if anyone has tried to call police about them.
But the fundraising effort bears a striking similarity to reports of scams that have cropped up elsewhere in the country.
Four people were arrested last October in Rialto, Calif., after they were caught collecting money on the side of the road for funeral that didn’t exist, according to a media source.
In another case, two adults and seven juveniles were stopped in Los Angeles in May 2020 raising money for a baby named “Alejandro Gomez.” When police questioned one of the men, he said he was raising money for a girl who died but it was a scam, according to a local news report.
There also have been media reports of similar questionable fundraisers in Nashville, Tenn., in February, in Springfield, Mo., and Perris, Calif., in October 2022, and in El Paso, Texas in February 2022.
The handmade signs in many of the cases resembled those being used on the street corners in Tri-Cities.
The Federal Trade Commission offered some advice for people looking to give to charities and other fundraisers.
▪ It’s safer to make donations by check or credit card. If someone asks for only cash, gift cards or to wire money, don’t do it.
▪ Scammers often try to pressure people into making a donation.
▪ Fraudsters often make lots of vague and sentimental claims, but not provide specifics.