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Fraudsters have been using photos of a 9-year-old battling brain cancer, and his family is begging them to stop.
Julian was diagnosed with medulloblastoma in 2019. He’s relapsed twice after enduring multiple surgeries, bouts of chemotherapy, and radiation treatment. The little boy has been given six months to a year to live, ABC13 reported.
“We are thoroughly and emotionally worn out,” his father, Lee Galloway, told the outlet.
Now, the family from Corpus Christi, Texas, says they have an additional stressor to combat: scammers.
The family created a Facebook page called Team Julian where they share updates and photos of the child’s journey. The page boasts more than 4,000 followers. But fraudsters are using photos of Julian for their own schemes, according to ABC13.
Scammers have been setting up bogus social media accounts using his photos — with fake names — that ask for contributions for a sick child. The fake accounts provide a link, which sends users to a PayPal asking for euros, the outlet reported.
The family said they didn’t see this coming. “It was never in our thoughts. It was just a way to tell people all the exact information. We were so brand new into the cancer journey,” Galloway told the outlet.
Julian’s father said he reports the fake accounts when he comes across them but said he has to jump through hoops on social media platforms to get them taken down.
“Sometimes there are things you want to report that don’t fit into any of the categories on their reporting page on any of the social media sites. When you don’t click the right thing and no one actually sees it, it’s just some AI that says we’ve reviewed this and it doesn’t violate any terms of use,” he said. “That’s frustrating.”
The real GoFundMe for Julian — which is linked on the Team Julian Facebook page — has garnered more than $38,000 in donations.
To ward off scammers from using Julian’s photos on TikTok, family members created an official TikTok page for Julian earlier this month.
The family members wrote on the Team Julian page: “Okay, here is the official Team Julian TikTok! Don’t be alarmed if you see this profile out there. This account was created by us primarily to be able to report the scammers on TikTok. After researching and the help of an old family friend who has an inside track at the company, we needed an account to say this is the real Julian. There will only be a couple posts there initially to help prove his identity, then we will work on where the account goes from there. Latest updates will still be here on Facebook.”
Fake fundraising victims can report their experiences on the Harris County Attorney’s Stay Scam Free page.
