Heartless scammers target grieving family

A family who lost their teenage son after years of battling cancer have been targeted by heartless scammers who set up Facebook pages asking his friends and family for donations in the days after his death.

Perth father Mark Tracy told 9News that his father died last Monday and his son Levi, 19, on Tuesday.

The family were trying to plan the funeral when they became aware of Facebook pages that were set up by scammers asking people for donations in the days after Levi’s death.

“This particular scamming page, they are personally reaching out and messaging people,” Mr Tracy said.

“They have a PayPal account they are trying to get people to send money to.”

The pages imitated another Facebook page the family had created to keep Levi’s friends and family updated about his condition that was called Lifeline for Levi.

Levi was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s T-cell lymphoma when he was seven years old, going through “gruelling” chemotherapy for more than two years before he went into remission.

Then when Levi was 17, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, which sadly claimed his life two years later.

The Facebook page was a way for the family to communicate with their loved ones and share details about Levi’s journey. It had encouraged people to donate blood, plasma and a kidney.

But sadly after he died, scammers created fake pages, then reached out to Levi’s family and friends asking for donations.

Mr Tracy said he felt anger and frustration because it brought everything up to the surface again, and people were now questioning their integrity.

“Which is hard at any point but even more hard this week,” he said.

“(Levi) cared for everybody, his humour, he was just bright, he just lit the room up.

“There were times, we would not have got through without that support.”