Just over 10 months ago, I had met a woman on a popular dating website and for that time, we would communicate through chat and email. This woman claimed to be in the military, currently stationed in Syria before taking a tour in Mauritius and then back to Syria.

We often talked about our dreams, about her experiences in the military life and even soccer during this past World Cup and Champions League.

However, throughout the course of the 10 months, she would often ask for my assistance when it came to financials. I was trying hard to be wary of the situation and often advised the woman that I was not comfortable with such matters, but yet being of the Christian faith, I always believed that it is important to give of one self.

Well, one of the things this Marine wanted to do was set up a Vitamin Water business while on assignment in Port Louis, Mauritius. To do that, she would need me to help put in some money, but I did not have too much money. Instead, I had to take out loans from three banks, as well as a loan against my 401k, to help keep her dream afloat between May and July.

Well, I find out that this is most likely not real and one of the things that disturbed me about this came this month, which really started almost six weeks earlier.

This Marine said her return would be in March from Mauritius, but due to an unforeseen circumstances, the coming home date was changed to August 6. Then, it would be changed to around the first week of December, with the Marine having an opportunity to come home during late September and early October. That never came, and what she wanted to do was sinister and questionable. I advised her that I was not comfortable, but she wanted me to max out my credit card to purchase what would be 16 iPhones XS Max 64 Gigs. Yes, you read that right.

She would make payments down on my credit card to get the balance low, and offered to also pay off two of the outstanding loans as well. Guess what? All those payments had been returned. Bummed out.

Now, I am struggling to make the minimum payments and I am days away from filing for bankruptcy. On top of that, I had just turned 32 just weeks ago, and not only that, my brother had a heart scare in which he needed angioplasty and my older sister had been diagnosed with cancer just weeks ago. Add that my mother suffers from diabetes and my father has a mild case of Parkinson’s disease and the last few weeks (well, really almost all of 2018) has been nothing but a sucker punch.

I know in reading this you make think I should have been more wary, and I understand your thoughts. But perhaps the toughest moniker I had to shed growing up was being labelled “most gullible” growing up. I thought I did, but now I realize I need more work.

All I wanted to find on the website was a suitable woman that I could share my dreams and talents with. Now, all I am facing is the possibility that none of my dreams will come to fruition.

Please help me to whoever sees this :( I am currently in debt with about a few hundred dollars because my EX-best friend scammed me…It was like she was planning this for months. We met at my school 2 months ago and she was the new student. I wanted to be the nice person so I befriended her. But I should’ve known that this was going to happen…She has been acting a little bit weird and kept on bringing up stuff relating to money. I never knew she would do this. I thought SHE was in a need of something so badly that she would talk about this in front of me. I felt bad (somehow..) so I asked her why she kept on bringing it up.. she said that she just needed $10 to buy something from an online site that I didn’t know of or else her (supposedly) abusive boyfriend would do something to her. I agreed because I didn’t want anything happening to her.. but.. she needed my card info (her parents “didn’t trust her” with a card) to be able to “buy” IT. I was skeptical with her but to see her act like THAT, I felt pity for her so I gave my info…anddd that leads to where I am… She used my info to transfer all I saved up to her account… I tried everything to try and contact her but the next thing I knew, she already moved to who knows where. Please help me.. I need to have a way to put food in my stomach and a warm house to stay in. Please help me :(

PayPal.me/larisale

I finally had my place, my spot, my very own apartment. I had worked for months, saving every extra cent I could round up. It was a bit more than I had look planned for, but thing things fell into place perfectly. The first three or four months seemed to be a blur of crazy and then it was gone. Month five, rent is $1200 plus the extras like power, and water, the gas company and such. I have skipped bothering with cable or internet, those luxuries are not for me today.

I had been țhinking about getting a pick-up to get myself to where I needed to be, the bus system has been great to me, but they tend to balk a bit when I’m trying to transport the 16 foot branch with the perfect twist to its trunk that I absolutely MUST have for my next wood project or three. Yep, I needed a little truck.

I managed to save a couple hundred dollars. Made myself reign in my impulses and keep my goal in sight. I don’t know how I could have missed the signs, but almost over night the place where I had worked for months now closed its doors and went out of business. I was NOT prepared.

Rent was due on the third, by the fifth there is a fee tacked on of an additional $150. My lease agreement has another month to go, but I am at a loss. I have $360 total and I’m out of time. I began to gather up and pack my belongings. A few pairs of holy jeans, t-shirts, my Doc Martens, and the rest… I think that my clothing only accounts for maybe a third of my pile-in-progress. The other two- thirds would be the many, varied, and unusual random art supplies, and other implements of creation that I am so attached to.

Lost and not knowing what to do I browsed the classified sites on my phone for awhile. An ad caught my eye,

“want to make $400 cash right now? Just look presentable and Bring I.D”

I had to at least try, right?

This guy was pretty slick. He had been taking people to a certain carriers store, having them walk in and get 2 or 4 of the latest iPhones and regardless of their credit score, only the cost of the tax was required at that time. So, he put up the $75 or so per phone, I left with 4 phones. He took out a was of bills and paid me $200 per phone. I was ecstatic! Money in my pocket and I could breathe easy for a bit.

The next day he picked me up and went to a department store, two phones. Then to another, two more phones. And yet another to get two more. $1200 in one day, in the span of maybe 4 hours. In the meantime I am getting my people to come participate as well… share the wealth and all. Right?

Two days pass and I have been in literally every possible store that sells the newest model at least 3 times. I was helping to make sure that we had an efficient little system in place. Well apparently I did something to piss the guy off all of the sudden. It was peachy one minute and a nightmare the next. I don’t know what I did, but I have never been on the receiving end of that kind of rage before. I was legitimately frightened.

I had saved up all my money and it was in an envelope next to me in the car. He made like he was going to swing at me, so I dodged and got the door open. He gunned it, death gripped my money and sped forward as I tumbled out of the passenger side. I stood up, brushed off and realised that I was even deeper in the mud and sinking steadily. What a gullible, easy mark I made myself. What was I even thinking?

The next two days I packed up the rest of my apartment and said my goodbyes to my little h home. Packed it all into a storage shed that my friend was so kind to rent for me, and made plans to head out. 300 or so miles down the freeway is a little cook college town that I lived in a long while back. I can get started over down there and be situated by winter. It’s only the first week of July.

Let me just tell you… I’m not sure that I EVER want to go camping again for as long as I can draw breath. 3 weeks in the woods felt like I was the star of jumanji ! Every time I came out of the tent I was swarmed with meat eating bees. They were Everywhere! I am still too freshly traumatised to go into much detail of the camping I did. I’m very grateful that I am able to say I made it back to salt lake in fairly good condition.

I’m still living day to day with my backpack as my best friend. I’m not sure where, what, when, or how I will make it happen, but I will have a place to call my own before Christmas. I am determined to take my life back into my own hands again.

I have no cell phone. That guy took off in the car holding onto my envelope, and my phone was lost in the confusion. I don’t have any resources to get another, not even a cheap-o from Wal-Mart. But I WILL have one. I’m hoping that I can work through this day labor office for a bit to get some routine back into my days, and earn enough to get by. Not having a phone is a real damper on that since I am impossible to get in contact with except by email.

I am thousands of dollars in debt now, thanks to that cell phone scammer. My credit is a mess! That nightmare is just starting to brew, I’ll be feeling the aftershocks of that for years, I’m sure.

No matter what, I am standing with my head held high and both feet planted firm. I’m not letting these challenges defeat me. Hopefully, with a little help from a friend out there, I might be able to get my life back on track.

This past year I enrolled in a for profit school. I’m not going to say the name because I’ve heard they can ask to be taken down and whatnot. But please do not enroll in for profits they are snakes with lots of equipment to show but very little to do with what they are showing :( I owe what’s looking like $20k in student loans since its now hard to get out, but I don’t feel it’s necessary asking for that much.

I plan on extending out the loans on a 10 year plan, working part time and just getting a degree in economics from my city university within 3 years since I already have my associate’s. After doing the math, $5k seems to be about 2 years worth of payments, and 2 years of the next payments I’m going to be stuck with can really help me out. I plan on getting an economics degree this time around and dumping all of my income into getting out of debt once I graduate. So it would be ideal to be receiving the money over the next few years until I graduate and can pay for them all myself. 10k of this 20k is in parent plus loans and I can’t possibly ask my mom for that type of money. I normally don’t ask for handouts but that 10k on the parent plus could put our home on the line. Sadly I won’t be able to offer you much, except maybe a free portfolio consultation after college lol. But i can’t thank you enough if you do donate any amount. God bless you all!

Giovanni H.

https://paypal.me/beenscammed

Hello,

I was widowed in 2014 at the age of 52. Last year I decided to start dating again and began to join dating websites. I started talking to a few men, 3 to be exact, but wasn’t quite interested in them. Late one night I came across a profile that touched me.

He was a little younger than me and raising g his 5 year old child. He immediately told me he had been married 4 time and had 10 children. (Yes, I know, I should have run).

We dated for two months and started to talk about the future. He told me he could not live in town anymore, that he needed to be in the country.

I could no longer afford my house and had recently filed bankruptcy.  My deceased husband left me with a huge IRS debt.

So a plan was hatched to sell my house and buy a property in the country. He promised to marry me if I purchased a property for us.

My house was paid off so I would be able to pay cash for a property. My house sold in two days. We found a house on 10 acres and made an offer on it and it was accepted.

I walked away with $54,000.00 and the spending spree began. He bought two Kawasaki ATV’s, a small ATV for his daughter, an enclosed trailer, a car hauler trailer, multiple guns, and a whole laundry list of other items.

And I gave him $10,000.00 to give to his ex-wife to sign custody over of his daughter.

Some of that money was to be used to pay off the utilities and Bill’s associated with the sell of the house. Needless to say, that never happened. And he confessed his divorce was not final yet.

Things were going well except that he would not help with any of the household bills.  Any fights we had were over money. All the while he was still promising to marry me.

Then in May we had a huge fight over housework. My routine every day was to wake his daughter up, get her dressed, breakfast then off to the bus and I went on to work. After I got off work I would pick her up at the sitters ar 6:00pm, cook dinner, help her with her homework, put her in the bath and then off to bed. No help from him whatsoever. He asked me one day “when are you going to do housework?” The fight was on and I asked him to leave. He apologized,  said he would do more around the house, and that was the end of it.

Then the harrassment began about him not feeling safe because I held all of the cards. Nightly he would harass me about putting his name on the deed until I finally did it.

Then in June he asked if we could just live together, that he was afraid to get married again. I said I was fine with that for now.

Then he had a friend move a shed on to the property so she could turn it into a tiny home. I believe he is having an affair with her.

In July he had his mother move a building on to the property to have a tiny home also. During her visit here we had an incident where one of my dogs killed a stray kitten and he threatened to kill my dog because of ot.

This past Monday, 8/14/18, he told me at dinner that he did not want to be in a relationship anymore, but wanted to build a house on the property and have me raise his daughter and he would let me dat other people.

That was not our agreement and I told him so.

I came home the next day with a list of how we were going to divide things and he was fine with that until his mother started getting involved. I was harassed in person and via text message for the rest of the evening.

The next morning as I was going to work I noticed he had removed the keys to the ATV’s and had is mistress come out to spend the night. I called the sheriff and they advised me to get a protective order.

I did, and after he got served the protective order he stole the ATV’s, trailer and other items.

I have hired an attorney and a civil case is being prepared.

I need $8,000.00 for the following:

$3,500.00 for attorney

$1,600.00 for the titles to the ATV’s

$1,500.00 for the car tag and insurance that I could not pay because he has cleaned me out.

The rest to get caught up on utilities and medical bills.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

paypal.me/dupedinok

Sincerely,

Erin Porter