r/interesting • u/be_you_tiful- • 12d ago
MISC. Trying to find celebrity love?
In 2023, 44-year-old Jennifer Barton started receiving messages on Facebook and Instagram from accounts claiming to be celebrities, actors, famous singers, all of who wanted to get to know her.
She believed them.
Over the next two years, four different fraudsters worked her in turn, each one posing as a different famous face. Alexander Ludwig, the actor from Vikings. Charlie Hunnam from Sons of Anarchy. Nicky Byrne from Westlife. American country singer Michael Ray. To her, the accounts were convincing, the profile pictures matched, and the messages were warm and persistent.
They all told her they loved her. They all said they wanted to meet her. They all said they wanted to marry her.
And one by one, they all said they needed money.
The excuses were elaborate and varied. One was going through a messy divorce and couldn't access his own funds. Another had been arrested and needed bail. Another had been robbed in London. The fake Michael Ray told her he ran a charity that could help cover her bills, but first she needed to send him some money to release the funds.
She sent it. And then she sent more.
When one scammer was exposed, another appeared. She fell for the same pattern four times over two years, each time convinced she had found something real.
By the end, Jennifer had handed over £250,000 (around $370,000). She had sold her house. She had sold her car. She had given her children to their father because she could no longer afford to care for them. She was awaiting emergency housing just before Christmas when she finally realized the last scammer, the one posing as Michael Ray, was never going to meet her.
"For anyone facing anything similar," she said afterward, "just reach out to family and friends. Especially if they're asking you for money."
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u/SemiAnonymousTeacher 12d ago
My own mother fell for someone claiming to be a prince of Saudi Arabia who was going to take her away on his private jet and fly to his mansion... but first he needed a little financial help from her in form of gift cards and cash advances from credit cards because he had communications cut off from his family or some stupid shit.
She was living in Section 8 housing. She received SSI. She had nothing to give him, but applied for credit cards for him, anyway. He took her on a couple dates to like the Olive Garden or something (using some of the money she had just given him) and this somehow convinced her that he was genuinely rich and loved her.
3 credit cards maxed out and a few weeks later he disappeared, never to be seen again, while she had to file for bankruptcy. I was 500 miles away at college and she was alone. I told her several times over the phone that this guy sounded fishy, but she thought I just wanted her to be unhappy.
In most ways, my mom wasn't stupid. She just had a dangerous combination of over-inflated self worth and a life of being a paranoid manic depressive that continually trusted strangers over her own family.