5 On Your Side uncovers Venmo donation fraud targeting Helene relief efforts

Nearly 130,000 YouTube subscribers follow Meredith Bernard's life on her Caswell County farm. Self-dubbed ‘The Farm Wife,’ Bernard’s videos highlight her life working and living on her farm near the Virginia-line with her husband and children.

“This has just become one big community and one big family,” Bernard said about following she has on social media.

When Helene hit, Bernard’s farm was largely spared, but she wanted to help others who weren’t as fortunate.

“The past six years that I've been growing this following I've always known it had a purpose, but, I haven't seen that full potential until this past two weeks,” Bernard said as she held back tears.

She first partnered with other farms for a donation drive, but figured she could do more given the platform she had online.

“I shared my Venmo and my PayPal, and the rest is history,” Bernard said. Donations poured and in less than two weeks, Bernard says she's raised more than $50,000 to get relief directly into the hands of people who need it.

She’s posted videos to her account showing her and other volunteers buying, loading and delivering supplies to storm-damaged mountain areas.

But a few days ago, someone warned Bernard a scammer was impersonating her account on Venmo, using her photo and a nearly identical username.

“My heart sank, and I was like, no, please no,” Bernard recalled.

Unfortunately, the Better Business Bureau's Meredith Radford says scams like these are common after a disaster

“Sometimes scammers will post a website or a link to a website that sounds really, really close to a charity you might be familiar with, but the URL is slightly off, or the name is slightly off and you donate to it and it’s not real,” Radford said.

When you make any donation, remember:

• Double check those usernames and web addresses down to each letter, number and character.
• Confirm Venmo donations with the recipient’s phone number.
• Give to groups or people you know and trust.
• Scammers prey on emotion so be wary of making any donation without vetting where that money is going.
• Donate with a credit card, they offer the most protections.

Bernard tried contacting Venmo’s parent company PayPal to get the fraudulent account taken down but says she was unsuccessful.

The fraudulent has since been removed, but Bernard says she saw at least a couple of people made donations to the fraudulent page before then.

“It's infuriating. I mean, there's no other word for it, it's sad, it's evil, it's disgusting,” Bernard said.

She just hopes these scams don’t prevent people from giving in the future.

PayPal did respond to WRAL’s request for comment saying they take these situations very seriously and have a zero-tolerance policy for fraud. PayPal highlighted a number of purchase protections they offer and urged customers to contact Customer Support directly about any fraudulent transactions.

As for Bernard, she just hopes these scams don’t prevent people from giving in the future.

“The whole face of our, our mountain communities, has changed forever, and these people are going to need, have needs for a long time,” Bernard said.