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RSPCA fury at bogus callers
8/ 5/2008
BOGUS collectors pretending to raise money for Meg have been preying on kind-hearted shoppers.
Two young men were seen on Tuesday evening last week outside the Morrisons store posing as official RSPCA volunteers and rattling buckets with pictures of Meg stuck on.
The scam only came to light when a lady who had made a donation to the youths mentioned them to a genuine RSPCA volunteer, who realised they had not organised an evening collection.
The collection, organised to raise money for Meg after she was attacked by a group of children in Darnhill two weeks ago, was part of National RSPCA week.
Alison Tomlin, who is manager of the RSPCA shop on Market Street and has been organising the collection, said: "We are all devastated that someone could do this.
"It is unbelievable that people are finding profit in something that was atrocious to start with.
"We called the police as soon as these bogus collectors came to light and Morrisons have also been brilliant and are checking their CCTV to see if there is any footage of the youths.
"We want people to know that if it is a genuine RSPCA collection, the volunteers will be in uniform or have identification badges.
"We also only collect between the hours of 9am and 4.30pm so we would not have been collecting in the evening."
Dedicated part-time RSPCA volunteer Bryan Tomlinson, 20, who was collecting in Morrisons on Wednesday, said: "For these people to exploit such a terrible thing is so wrong, it’s just surprising that someone could think of it."
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