Twins accused of running scam grocery delivery service

At first glance, Renee and Rhea Mendonca seem like college-bound teenagers focused on helping others.

News 12 Staff

Jun 25, 2020, 2:10 AM

Updated 1,536 days ago

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At first glance, Renee and Rhea Mendonca seem like college-bound teenagers focused on helping others.
The twin sisters claimed to have made 1,000 grocery deliveries throughout Brooklyn and other parts of the city.
But that mission may have been misleading. Since speaking with the sisters on June 8, News 12 has learned that the representative for the Mendonca twins, identifying herself as Kayla Wood, has been pitching the same story to other stations around the country.
News 12's attempts to contact Wood have been unsuccessful.
The GoFundMe campaign where they solicited donations is no longer active. Unlike other stations, News 12 did not share their GoFundMe link.
In a statement, a spokesperson for GoFundMe said in part, "We removed the campaign and all donors will be refunded. Campaigns with misuse are very rare, and we take all complaints very seriously."
A Google search of the teens shows videos with similar stories of the duo doing good in different parts of the county, identifying themselves as being local to those areas.
It also shows them on a student advisory board at Kingsborough Community College for a college credit program. Or at least it did. They were removed from the page Wednesday.
A spokesperson for the college says they cannot confirm at this time whether the girls were part of that program but they were never enrolled in the college itself. They are looking into why the profiles were removed from the website.
News 12 has not been able to reach the Mendonca twins.