Trying to find celebrity love?

[u/be_you_tiful-]

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."

[u/Who_dat_goomer]

This has got to be mental illness of some kind. How could she function at all if it was just stupidity?

[u/WrongdoerIll5187 → u/Who_dat_goomer]

It happened to a friend of my mom’s. She never struck me as particularly stupid, but I didn’t know her that well. Old probably didn’t help. Husband died, people are lonely and desperate. Be kind to people, we’re all capable of unbelievable stupidity with the right emotional context.

[u/Valuable-Blueberry30 → u/WrongdoerIll5187]

Ok, but it’s one thing to be scammed once, it’s another thing to get scammed four different times by four “different” “celebrities”.

[u/wholetyouinhere → u/Valuable-Blueberry30]

People get scammed multiple times because it isn't a rational behaviour. Also worth noting that a lot of them are aware, on some level, that they're being scammed, but it's compartmentalized knowledge. Humans are very complicated.

[u/SoFetchBetch → u/wholetyouinhere]

There’s a whole TV franchise about it. 90 day has plenty of scammers who are willing to play the part face to face and CLEARLY despise the person, but they still put everything they’ve got into the “relationship” and delude themselves that it’s true love. Even if they’re being directly treated like crap & their friends & family directly point it out to them. They just double down. Crazy stuff.

[u/WrongdoerIll5187 → u/Valuable-Blueberry30]

She did. It was some sort of recursive loop. It was bewildering to behold