By ANEEKA SIMONIS
A POORLY scripted scam targeting disabled drivers did not fool a Berwick woman who found a letter in her mailbox earlier this month.
Angela Allan arrived home from work on Wednesday 11 March to find a letter addressed to “disabled driver” in her mailbox.
The non-disabled driver opened the letter to find she had been ‘fined’ for parking illegally in a disabled park in the City of Greater Dandenong and was required to deposit an undisclosed amount of money in an unconfirmed bank account.
“It’s obviously a scam. I never even go to Dandenong,” she said.
The letter, which is rife with spelling mistakes and formatting errors, used the City of Greater Dandenong’s logo in the letterhead – but that’s the only thing the scammers seem to have got right.
The council’s regulatory services manager Peter Shelton said the scam was news to him and he was fairly certain that police officer “Tim Harddoneby” wouldn’t quite get the pennies he was after.
“In looking at the document, it is evident that it is a poorly constructed hoax,“ he said.
“It is printed on a blank sheet of paper, there’s no council contact information, no reference to acts or other legislation, nor is there any information on how to request a review of the notice.
“In these matters, all enforcement agencies must use forms which comply with legislative standards and include detailed information on the alleged matter.”
The women reported the letter – which strangely also came with a fake disabled parking permit – to Dandenong police.
