A Maple Leaf resident who lives at 11th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 80th Street notified the Community Council last week of a possible scam in the neighborhood:
Last night around 8 p.m. a woman came to my door saying that she was selling stuffed toy rabbits for $10 to help with medical bills for a neighbor’s 3-year-old who fell out of a 3-story window. She had about 12 of the stuffed rabbits in her arms. I questioned her more and said I would be happy to contribute if I could get the name of the folks and their address so I could send a check. She gave me one excuse after another about not giving out the name or address and said hot pink flyers were passed around the neighborhood – I didn’t get one – I said I would wait for the flyer so she left.
Thinking it was weird because we don’t have any 3-story houses on our street and because we would have heard something from our neighbors I looked online and found this:
http://www.magnoliavoice.com/tag/scam-fundraiser/We tried to go take a cell phone photo of the lady after we called the police – SPD sent a cruiser out but the woman and a man she was with left quickly in a Toyota. I talked to another neighbor this morning and he said a man had come to their door saying that a 3-year old neighbor boy had been hit by a car…two different stories so definitely a scam.
Has anybody else heard this story or seen the hot-pink fliers? And has anybody heard of a 3-year-old falling out of a window or being hit by a car in the neighborhood?
The same people were over around 97th/98th and 15th NE in late February.
Good timing – check out Marc Phillips' Seatle PI blog about this issue: http://blog.seattlepi.com/innorthseattle/archiv…