Over the weekend, a 9-year-old named Rebecca Ramnarine was killed in a hit-and-run car accident in Canarsie as she was being driven home from church. (The driver, Kenneth Palache, who fled the scene, was later caught and charged with criminally negligent homicide.) Soon after, someone decided to take advantage of the death by scamming people who wanted to help the girl’s grieving family: CBS 2 reports that Ramnarine’s parents, Richard and Abiola, found that a page claiming to be collecting cash for their daughter’s funeral had been set up on the fund-raising website Gofundme.com.
The creators of the fake fund-raiser wrote that they were Ramnarine’s aunt and uncle, and that they hoped to get $10,000 from well-meaning strangers. The Ramnarines alerted the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, which had the page shut down. Luckily, the scheme, which was linked to a California bank account, was discovered before anyone could cash in on it, and everyone who donated will get their money back. Still, the family remains understandably upset by the idea that their suffering was exploited. “Why would you take my pain and suffering and try to get some monetary gain out of it?” Richard asked. Unfortunately, the answer is pretty obvious.
