Over last weekend, an event appeared on Facebook purporting to offer discounted admission to the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science, which opened this Monday. With no official affiliation to the Frost, spelling and grammatical errors galore, a connection to a strange foundation, and a request for money to be transferred directly to someone’s personal account on a mobile payments app, it immediately looked suspicious. Yet over a hundred people had responded that they were attending. How many actually sent money via the app is unknown.
I shared this event on my personal Facebook wall with the commentary “Sending money to some random woman’s CASH app account for a discounted admission. Now why does this look like such a scam to me?” Nine hours later, the event completely changed from offering discounted admission to the museum to a “private tour,” which may or may not still have come with discounted admission. The wording was noticeably more vague, and just as poorly written.
Renee Foundation is giving a private tour to explore the new Frost Science Museum during this family-friendly day of educational play with Smithsonian Latino Center’s Descubra! science activities on Frost Science opening weekend!
Play the role of a scientist, as you engage in different hands-on projects that explore biology, health, marine science and engineering.LIMITED space for this PRIVATE TOUR by foundation Renee
CONFIRM by May 10th by SENDING PAYMENT to CASH app user $susyrosado or private message for Bank of America instructions
When sending specify your name and kids name.
Kids ticket $19 (at museum $20 dlls)
Adult ticket $25 (at museum $28)
About Renee:
http://www.renees-group.org/Renee Educational Field Trips
We provide grants for field trips that align with a teacher’s curriculum in STEAM related fields
OUR MISSION: To promote structured informal learning STEAM related activities and resources that contribute to enhance and support classroom learning for all students.
Multiple people brought it to the attention of employee friends at the Frost, while I contacted a publicist who replied that the museum had reported it to Facebook as illegitimate. The event appears to have been canceled, either by Facebook or the organizer, and yet we still don’t know how many people were scammed.
- Frost Museum of Science coverage [The Big Bubble]
- Private tour by Renee at New frost museum [Facebook]
