Black Friday turned to Bleak Friday for Key Biscayne Community Church members, who learned that their largest fundraiser of the year was thwarted by a possible scam when the supply of Christmas trees was not delivered this week.
“Much to our dismay, the Community Church was taken advantage of and we fell into an unfortunate situation of what is happening more and more in our society. There are dishonest people doing dishonest things,” Pastor Dennis Eastling wrote in an Instagram message Friday to his congregation.
This year, the church ordered the Christmas trees from a new broker in June, the customary date for such orders.
Key Biscayne Police Chief Frank Sousa said a report was filed at his department Wednesday, and the detective assigned to the case sent an email to the broker in North Carolina to “either return the money or give us the trees.”
Monday afternoon, the vendor agreed to return the money.
“At least he is trying to be a standup guy, (the money) is supposed to be received by Wednesday,” Chief Sousa said. “Let’s see if he follows through. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The five-figure dollar value (the specific amount was not released) would “fall into the felony range,” he said. “It appears to be a scam (at this point).”
Pastor Denny agreed, writing in his message: “Unfortunately, we were scammed and our trees were not…
