Woman Scams Donations From Businesses

WINDER, GA -- Charities rely on this time of year when people make their end of the year donations and are in a giving mood. Unfortunately, some criminals take advantage of that.

Police in Winder and Cartersville are looking for a woman who is using the Toys for Tots Foundation, to scam donations from businesses.

Tara Friedman caught onto the scam before she gave any money. She's the event coordinator at Stars and Strikes, a family entertainment center in Dacula. Last Friday a woman came into the business and asked her to donate money to the Toys for Tots Foundation.

"She was asking me for a donation and we never do anything like that without some sort of documentation from the non-profit and she had nothing on her," Friedman said. Friedman says Stars and Strikes donates thousands of dollars to charities but not to solicitors who come door to door.

Friedman says she gave the woman her business card and she left. She didn't know that after the woman left, she went to at least three other businesses and used Friedman's business card as her identification.

Two hours after leaving Stars and Strikes, the woman was at Barbarito's Restaurant in Winder asking for donations. "She just came in and said she was with Toys for Tots," said Josh Armstead, who works at the restaurant. "She said she was taking donations for a charity drive that was going to be going on here." Armstead said they gave $50 to the woman.

Armstead has surveillance video of the woman in the restaurant. She wore all black clothing, dark sunglasses and a silver chain around her neck. The same woman went to two restaurants in Cartersville on Monday and used the same business card and pulled of the same scam. Each business gave her $100.

Armstead is worried how this will affect legitimate charities. "This is going to make businesses not want to donate at all for the real cause and it will just put a hurting to it in the long run," he said.

Tara Friedman wonders how many other businesses may not know they've been scammed by the woman. "That's what scares me and that's why I wanted to make sure the public knew about her," she said.

Experts recommend you carefully pick your charities on your own time and don't give money to door to door solicitors.