Cape Breton schools used in online booking scam for summer camp, school rentals
Centre for education says people should be careful online when booking schools for activities or summer camps
A fraud alert has been issued by the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education after the discovery of a website that was taking bookings for after-hours school activities and summer camps in Sydney, N.S.
Lewis MacDonald, the centre's director of operations, said the website is not legitimate.
"There's all kinds of scam artists out there and people need to be really diligent in when they click on something that they can trust that site," he said Wednesday. "Anything that we put out has our email address [and] our contact information on it. If those things aren't on something, then people need to be careful."
MacDonald said this is the first time he's heard of this kind of fraud.
He said the website was supposedly taking bookings at Harbourside and Shipyard elementary schools.
One school called the police and the centre is aware of one parent who got scammed, MacDonald said.
The centre for education encourages people to rent schools for activities after-hours and has an online option for that.
"We have a very strict rental policy and procedure for our schools. We try to get the message out widely of how to book and we welcome bookings and this certainly wasn't something that we had ever entertained or knew about," MacDonald said.
Anyone who is unsure of an online booking or activity offered in schools should contact the school in question directly, he said.
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