I am hoping that someone will help if only to restore my faith in the goodness of people. I will not lose my home or car and am not starving but on the other hand I haven’t been careless with money or got involved in drugs, alcohol or illegal behavior. I am only in this pricadement because of my great (but in retrospect) very foolish generosity. I wish there was something besides a link to the paypal account, if so then even if people don’t feel drawn to donate, they could send me encouraging words.
I am asking for a total of 30K, and have sustained losses for far more but this is the main part. I had taken in some people who were homeless to help them and me out. One was a gentleman who I became very fond of, and he was supposed to work in exchange for housing, he took advantage of me and did little work but he got the housing, he did have outside jobs but he still couldn’t make it on his own. He had a car someone had given him but it had constant problems so he wanted to borrow money for a car, I loaned him around 7K and he disappeared shortly thereafter.” Another person I took in said he could flip cars with me, I’d buy them and he’d fix them up. I bought the car for $700. He also left and took the car with him.
I took someone else in, who turned out to be a con man, I had no car and used a lifeline phone, but he always had some story about being mugged, (which) and I believed his story when he was picked up my police that it was because they suspected he had drugs but he didn’t (the police released him and would not state anything about him) so had to believe him. He had too many incidents where he was mugged and I used to worry about him so I finally told him he had to leave as I was always worrying about him. He said he got a job with Halliburto in Texas, lost money I gave him on the way (I trusted him because he got an insurance check which he turned over to me, weeks after I gave him cash for it, the check was returned, but stupid me, thinking he would pay me back and he was somewhere else unable he said to cash his Halliburton check due to i.d. problems-he had none when I met him as he said he was mugged (he was mugged all the time). I constantly lent him money because he couldn’t cash his paychecks and though I DID try to contact him through Halliburton they NEVER returned my calls until at the end when I found out he was scamming not only me but another family. I had a friend who said he was scamming me, but I was so trusting I defended him.
Had other people who I let stay, one who was African American who had a job but said the friend was going to let him stay with him when he came to L.A. but changed his mind when he came and because he was black had a hard time finding a place as he hadn’t got his paycheck yet, and also helped him get a bike, he did pay me something but it was for either the bike or rent, because what he gave me was only enough for one, a girl who I thought was a friend who just exploited me again, living for practically free and doing nothing, another man who I believed brought bed bugs. A couple who said again, they would pay me when they got paid, helped pay their phone bill and when it came time to pay, came up with all these excuses and then just left . Another who only wanted to borrow cash for a few days to buy bikes to resell but never paid me back.
Years ago another was a person who had his car impounded costing him hundreds a day, said he needed a quick loan until his dad sent him money, once he got it from me, he didn’t pay, this was a guy who wanted to make Christian movies! Another needed money for his business and was going to take a life insurance policy to pay me back, went for open heart surgery and his gf told me he died and there was no policy and the car he gave me a pink slip for his car was sold.
The last one was a man I met, who seemed different from the rest who owned a home and had a business plan that I really was persuaded that this could work. When it was time to pay, he at first got angry with me saying I was too impatient, then started putting me down, saying i was a woman who couldn’t understand things, avoiding my calls and then maybe changed his number as his voicemail is in Spanish now. Because I had documentation from him and knew he had assets, contacted lawyers who told me that although the amount too high for small claims. the amount was not worth their time and the interest he said he would pay me was too high and not legal.
The last incident is just too terrible to think about as it’s a professional, a dentist who scammed me. She charged my Medicare insurance for a partial she never made and then closed her office and left the U.S. probably to Venezuela where she was from, with the money. I found out later when I wanted to use $1800 for an implant it was gone. I waited until I could get enough from my insurance the next year but by then I needed a bone graft for the bone got lost during that period as I had to wait a year for the allowance, so still have no implant as had to wait until the end of this year, what’s worse I suppose is the customers who wrote a review on Yelp about her and said she took off with their deposits for future work.
The police won’t do anything both as a civil matter and probably because they think I’m an idiot and deserve it I guess. When they ask me they tell ME they won’t accept the money as a gift but only as a loan as they knew I don’t have a lot of money. I could forgive the loans but instead of contacting me and offering to pay in payments or asking forgiveness for it, they just lie and avoid me. I won’t be homeless and starving but although I am not as mentally ill as some who write here, I feel depressed and sometimes feel suicidal to think I am so stupid. I am an elderly woman in her sixties and maybe I do things foolishly to combat my being lonely even though I make an effort to go out and about. I had diligently scrimped and saved which is why I had the money to lend in the first place and now I have to live on credit cards and pay high interest rates because of the money being gone. As I said, maybe people don’t want to give me much, but anything will help me think that people can be good and honest. `