North Camden Wife Swindled

Camden Courier-Post - February 15, 1938

By Man Offering Husband Job

Woman Borrows $5 From Neighbor and Gives It to Stranger; Fraud Revealed on Trip to Philadelphia City Hall

A North Camden woman was fleeced of $5 yesterday and left without funds to walk home from Philadelphia City Hall by a confidence man who promised her husband a job.

The victim is Mrs. Florence Downing, wife of Frank Downing, 816 Bailey Street.

She borrowed the $5 from a neighbor after the stranger offered to get Downing a job if he registered at Philadelphia City Hall as a solicitor.

Mrs. Downing said the stranger first asked her to advance a $12 registration fee, but later compromised for $5 and said he would obtain the balance from Downing’s first week’s salary.

Mrs. Downing accompanied the stranger by bus to Philadelphia when he said she might register for her husband. Near City Hall, he left the bus, telling her to go to Room 542 and ask for Mr. Sells.

“He said he would telephone and fix everything up for me,” she told police. The woman reported she found there was no Room 542 and no Mr. Sells.

Mrs. Downing said the swindler obtained her address through her husband’s father, George, 936 Cedar Street, after he approached George Downing and asked him where he could contact 20 young men who wanted to earn from $5 to $10 daily.