Fraudster STEALS Profits From Young Entrepreneur
(FeaturedNews.com) – On August 4, the Everett Police Department in Washington posted a sad story on their Facebook page about an 11-year-old who lost all his summer job earnings to a scammer. The community rallied around the poor child, raising a massive amount of money to pay him back for what the criminal took. The inspiring story shows how good can prevail.
A Lemonade Stand and a Crook
Jeremy Ryzhonkov used his allowance to set up a lemonade stand in his community. On June 15, a male customer bought about $20 in items from the boy and paid with a $100 bill. The child struggled to give him change, resorting to handing the man the rest of his allowance and all the profits from the day.
The young boy went to a local gas station after noticing the bill didn’t look right, and the clerk let him know it was counterfeit. The news devastated the child, who realized he had lost everything to a criminal.
A Community Rallies
The boy wasn’t just trying to earn money to buy silly things – he wanted to grow his lemonade business to send some help to the people of Ukraine. When the police department posted his story in an attempt to identify the man who had passed the fake bill on to him, people kept asking how they could donate to the child. Locals were outraged that someone could be as coldhearted as to rip off a kid.
A neighbor of the victim, Amy Steenfott, saw all the requests and decided to start a GoFundMe page. She set the goal at a modest $250, hoping to allow the child to get back what he lost and a little more to help toward his goals. But by August 12, the total collected had surpassed $25,800.
The now-12-year-old has since restarted his stand. This time around, he isn’t accepting large bills. And thanks to a kind woman who gave him a detection pen, he knows what to look for to weed out any more fake cash.
The Ongoing Investigation
Luckily, during the incident, the entrepreneurial lad was filming a video for YouTube. He caught the whole event on camera and was able to supply the images to the police, which they made public. Officials continue to investigate all tips on this matter but have not yet identified the culprit.
For using fake money, a person can face multiple charges in state court for theft, forgery, fraud, and other related crimes. The penalty is up to 20 years in prison at the federal level, so this con artist might be in more than just a little bit of trouble for scamming the little boy – he might just end up with some very serious criminal charges.
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