A professional con woman is fleecing kind-hearted shoppers out of their hard-earned cash by telling a sob story about her sick mother.
Dozens of people flooded social media with tales about the same woman working her scam throughout Bunnings and fast food car parks in Sydney’s western suburbs.
Dylan Kelaart said he encountered the middle-aged woman on Sunday in the carpark of a Hungry Jacks in Minchinbury.
He said she asked him for money to pay for parking at a nearby hospital because her mother had just been rushed there – and he took the bait.
Well-intentioned people claim to have been conned out of their hard-earned cash by this middle-aged woman peddling a sob story about her sick mother
‘She was well presented and very convincing, which led me to believe she was genuinely in need,’ he said.
‘I honestly felt bad for her and felt the right thing to do was to help her with some money.’
Mr Kelaart didn’t have any cash on him so he got $20 from an ATM after his children finished their ice creams and drove to the next door Bunnings to meet her.
As he arrived, he saw the woman accepting $10 from another stranger, but assumed she thought he wasn’t coming back and asked someone else.
‘I gave her the benefit of the doubt and gave her the $20. She was thankful, I wished her well and we parted ways,’ he said.
‘I felt good, I was actually quite happy that I helped someone in need, and a 20 was not going to be missed.’
The wife of a man who claimed to have been conned got a photo of the woman’s white Holden Commodore, which she gave to police
However, his warm glow turned to fury when his wife Angela called him on Wednesday telling him the woman was at St Marys Village shopping centre using the same story to ask for more money.
‘I was so disgusted,’ he said.
‘Not for me but there are kind people in this world that would gladly give money they cannot afford to help someone in this scammer’s apparent position.’
Ms Kelaart snapped a photo of the woman and told her to stop asking people for money, and claimed she was told to ‘f**k off’ before the woman ran back to her car.
The alleged scammer then drove to Revolution Fitness St Marys and Ms Kelaart followed her and claimed to see her trying the same routine.
‘The worst person in the world, is the one that preys on the kind nature of others, and that’s what’s most disturbing about this,’ Mr Kelaart said.
‘Scammers like this are the reason people don’t help one another any more, because so many have been duped and they no longer trust.’
Dylan Kelaart said he encountered the middle-aged woman on Sunday in the carpark of a Hungry Jacks in Minchinbury
Mr Kelaart didn’t have any cash on him so he got $20 from an ATM and drove to the next door Bunnings to meet her
Mr Kelaart said his wife and a worker at the gym reported the woman to St Marys police station.
The outraged father shared his story on social media and got hundreds of replies, many of which claimed to have also seen or been scammed by the same woman.
‘My girlfriend gave her $20 at the twin servos on the M4, the exact same story but she needed to get to the Newcastle hospital,’ one man wrote.
‘She only asked for $5 but my girl is very empathetic and was heartbroken when she didn’t use it for fuel but to buy smokes and Macca’s.’
Another wrote: ‘She approached my 79-year-old dad at Centro Penrith. He didn’t have cash on him but he said she had tears in her eyes and was very convincing.’
But days later his wife called him to say the woman was at St Marys Village shopping centre using the same story to ask for more money
Dozens of other alleged victims claimed to have seen the woman at Nepean Village shopping centre and other shops across western Sydney
A third said they gave her $10 outside the Minchinbury Bunnings because they were told the woman’s mother had been rushed to John Hunter Hospital.
‘She explained that the reason she was at Bunnings was to return an item hoping to get money back but Bunnings said no and just gave her a credit voucher,’ they said.
‘I offered to buy the voucher but she said her partner had it and was in trying to sort it out with management.’
Others claimed to have seen her in other locations across western Sydney, asking for either parking or petrol money to see her sick mother.
Public begging is illegal and most Australian states but not in NSW unless the begger is breaking the law, behaving in an anti-social manner, or blocking a pedestrian thoroughfare.
However, it was not clear if the woman would be breaking other laws with her alleged sales pitch.
NSW Police said it did not believe a crime had been committed.