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Two Oregon Girl Scout troops say they were hoaxed into believing they had made a huge corporate cookie sale for $24,000, or 6,000 boxes of cookies.
But the troops aren't letting the scam keep them down and already have a plan for triumphing over the trick.
The Girl Scouts were thrilled with the order that appeared to come from a woman who worked at a local company. Two troops put aside boxes for the massive order.
The problem came when they called the company for the payment.
"I contacted the ... company and they said, 'We have no idea what's going on,'" scout mother Jennifer Reed said on "Good Morning America" today.
The Girl Scouts realized they had been duped, but it was too late. They had already put the order through and received the cookies. They found themselves with 500 cases of cookies and no sales money for their summer camp and the homeless shelter they had committed to helping.
"They placed a fake order on us and they didn't know that it hurt our feelings a lot," Girl Scout Erin Donnelly, 8, said.
But they didn't let the trick keep them down for too long. They held an emergency sale at the Portland Girl Scouts headquarters on Saturday and hundreds of supporters lined up to buy the cookies.
By the end of the day, they had sold about half of the cookies and recovered $12,000. They also learned some valuable life lessons.
"For every one person that has bad intentions, there are hundreds more with good intentions and good hearts that are here to help you," said Sarah Miller, director of communication for Girls Scouts of Oregon and Washington.
The troops are planning a second sale on March 23.
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