Beware! There are people with fake sob stories on the prowl on social media out to fleece you. One such shocking story has come to light in Hyderabad with the police arresting a 22-year-old girl who raised a cool Rs 22 lakh (Rs 2.2 million) by posing as a cancer patient on the Facebook.
The rip-off came to light when some Saudi Arabia based donors came to the hospital in Hyderabad to inquire about her health but were shocked to find that there was no cancer patient by the name Samia Abdul Hafiz.
According to the police Samiya, who was working in Riyadh created a #GoFundSamiya page on the Facebook to seek help from the netizens by posing as a women suffering from breast and throat cancer. As his father Abdul Hafeez was indeed a cancer patient she used his story, medical record and the prescriptions to bolster her own con story saying she had spent her entire money on treatment of her father and had no money for her own treatment. It was also backed up by a video recorded message of Dr Mohana Vamsy of Omega Hospital in Banjara Hills. The Good Samaritan had made the appeal thinking it was all about her father’s treatment.
The girl also manipulated the hospital records and prescriptions and inserted her own name in place of the patient to seek the donations.
Once her appeal went viral on the social media and the #GoFundSamiya page caught the attention of the people in many parts of the world, money started pouring into her account in State Bank of Hyderabad and over a period of 8 months till March she was able to collect Rs 22 lakh.
Her game was up when some well-wishers who had made the donation came to visit her at the hospital. It was only then Omega Hospital came to know about the video message of Dr Mohana Vamsi. On coming to know that she had pulled off a fast one on them, the hospital authorities lodged a complaint . The police swung into action and arrested her from her house in Sayeedabad area of old city.