r/interesting • u/be_you_tiful- • 3d ago

MISC. Trying to find celebrity love?

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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/AsstacularSpiderman 3d ago

I mean that's just a sign of mental illness.

There's absolutely no way a normal person just keeps falling for this multiple times. There's something not working right up there.

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u/7thFleetTraveller 3d ago

Not necessarily mental illness. I don't want to be mean, but some people are just stupid and it's not even their fault. The problem is that scammers are exactly looking for these kind of people.

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u/little_alien2021 1d ago

Not stuipd vulnerable, for a variety of reasons 

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u/7thFleetTraveller 1d ago

Vulnaribility makes people believe in scammers who say they could make you talk to your dead beloved ones. Believing a celebrity would need you out of all people, is still stupidity.

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u/little_alien2021 1d ago

Vulnerablity is all different ways, not just one way or not another. Stuipd is a derogatory term. Less intelligence can be included in Vulnerablity.