Stranger Gives His Car To A Struggling Family After Online Scam Takes Their Last $600

October 12, 2018

A New Brunswick family has "a renewed sense of hope" after a total stranger gave them his car after learning the family was scammed out of $600.

Credit: CBC News / Nathan Donovan

Nathan Donovan and his wife Madison are parents of an infant and a toddler. They live in Moncton and receive social assistance. Nathan is disabled after breaking his back in a car accident in 2010 and can't work.

In an attempt to get off assistance and get back on their feet, the couple applied for a car loan so that Madison could go back to work. In order to get the $7,000 they were approved for, they were told to wire $600 to the company as collateral.

"It would get us up out of the hole we're in," Nathan told CBC News. "To be able to work and not to be on assistance. So I think it was the hope that kind of blinded us to the reality that this was a scam."

They never received the loan and the website was taken down.

In September, Nathan called CBC News to warn others about the online scam that took his last $600. Denis LeBlanc, a regular listener of the radio show, heard Nathan's story and, coincidentally, had been trying to sell his 2007 Volkswagen Jetta.

LeBlanc said he immediately called his wife and asked if they could afford to give the vehicle away.

"We had some ideas of what we were hoping to do with the money from the sale of the car," LeBlanc told CBC News. "I said, 'Can we swing it if we don't make money on this or any money at all?' And she goes, 'Yeah — I think we can do that'."

A few days later, LeBlanc handed Nathan the keys to the Jetta. The act of kindness has changed everything for the Donovan family.

"Everything is going awesome," Nathan wrote in an email to CBC News. "The car is great. Madison is working full time and we are no longer on assistance, which was our goal. We have a renewed sense of hope not only in our financial future but in our fellow man."