She was completely catfished but somehow her scammer actually fell in love with her? And
she was scammed into shaving her head! Let’s find out what happens when scammers go after
the most gullible people! 5 - Catfished
Christine Settingsgaard was a successful business executive looking for love. As a single mother of
three, Christine didn't have a lot of time to go out and meet people the traditional way. Tired
of being alone and single, Christine decided to join the dating app Hinge in the hopes of finding
a meaningful relationship. So when she matched with “Mark Godfrey”, Christne was quickly drawn
in by his good looks and gentle manner. "Mark" claimed to be an architectural
engineer from Greece who was working in the United States. He said he was a widower with
a five-year-old daughter named Hailey, who was living with his sister Kelsey in Utah. Mark was
a candidate that checked all the boxes: he was kind, considerate, and also looking for love.
Red Flags As their relationship
developed, their conversations moved off of Hinge. Mark would regularly text, call,
and even wrote Christine a love poem- he seemed like the perfect match. Mark had an accent
Christine thought was hard-to-place, but sounded European, and he strangely never video called her,
but he was charming, cared about her interests, and even took an interest in the peonies in her
garden. It’s easy to overlook a bunch of red lights when you’re so desperate for greens.
After six weeks of talking, Mark asked Christine for help transferring some money to his sister
and daughter, who lived in Utah. Christine said she would, but before doing so, she asked Mark
for some type of ID- she trusted him, but she wasn’t stupid. Mark complied without issue,
immediately sending over his California driver’s license, so Christine transferred the $500.
Demonstrating that he’s trustworthy, Mark quickly paid her back.
85,000 Reasons "Mark" traveled a lot for work,
so they couldn’t meet yet, but Christine was patient- she knew eventually they would be
together and everything would be perfect. Mark was even making plans to whisk her away on whirlwind
vacations, and Christine was walking on air. But then Mark asked Christine to do something
bigger: deposit an $85,000 check into her bank account and wire $82,000 to his sister
in Utah. Mark said he couldn't access his bank account from where he was working,
so he needed her help, and would allow Christine to keep $3000 as a thank you.
Christine agreed to transfer the $85,000, having no reason not to help. Mark’s plan was to mail
her a check for the amount, and all she had to do was deposit it into her bank account
and then wire the funds to his sister. Christine followed Mark's instructions
and deposited the check into an ATM. Due to a loophole with depositing checks in ATMs,
the $85,000 was available in her account the next day without having to wait for
the check to clear. So Christine sent the money to Mark's sister, job done.
A day later, Christine received a call from her bank telling her that the check had bounced and
she was now responsible for the entire amount. In an instant panic, Christine contacted Mark,
who claimed to have no clue what was going on or why the check would bounce.
Coming Clean Not long after, Christine
received a message from someone on Mark’s account who claimed to be working with the FBI-
they explained that "Mark" was part of a criminal network in Nigeria and that she had been scammed.
Christine was devastated and furious when she realized she had been scammed out of $85,000,
and worst of all, she found out that the poem he’d written her wasn’t even his! This
scammer was also a straight up plagiariser! The scammer contacted Christine again a few
weeks later and claimed to have fallen completely in love with her for real.
But Christine wasn’t having it and demanded to know who Mark really was.
She got her answer. His real name is William Ojo, and he sent her a picture of himself that looked
vastly different from the man she thought she knew. Ojo said that he was part of a criminal
network in Nigeria and had been scamming her all along, and begged for her forgiveness.
Oh, and could she deposit another check for $30,000? Christine of course said no.
Bank On It Christine turned to friends, neighbors
and her parents for help. It wasn't until she went public with her story that her bank agreed
to wipe her debt. Her bank would have happily left Christine almost $85,000 in the hole, if it wasn’t
for all the potential bad press. Even then, she was still left with over $5,000 dollars in phone
bills from the scammer's expensive international calls, which her phone company refused to waive.
This romance nearly left Christine broke in more ways than one.
4 - Broke Bruno Mars? Bruno Mars is one of the
most successful musicians today, with 11 Grammy Awards and countless hits under his belt. But it
seems like even world-famous pop stars like Bruno Mars can fall on hard times financially. Despite
his success, Mars is currently in the middle of a concert tour, and according to reports,
he’s struggling to cover the expenses. In an effort to raise the money he needs
and make ends meet, Mars has turned to his new girlfriend, a Texan retiree,
for help. Luckily for music fans everywhere, SHE has agreed to provide financial assistance.
Wait…WHAT??? 24 Karat Tragic
Lonely hearts beware: even with Valentine's Day approaching, not all romances are as they seem.
Just ask the anonymous 63-year-old Texas woman who was scammed out of $100,000 after falling in
love with someone who claimed to be Bruno Mars. It was supposed to be a love story for the ages:
an older woman, finally finding companionship and happiness in her later years with none
other than pop superstar Bruno Mars. But in a shocking revelation that
surprised everyone, it was all a scam. The 63-year-old victim was conned by two
Nigerian men who pretended to be Mars on social media. The men struck up a relationship with
our victim and gained her trust over time. The men, Chinwendu Azuonwu, 39, and Basil Amadi, 29,
reached out to the woman and convinced her that Mars was interested in pursuing a relationship.
Bruno Mars is one of the world's most famous pop stars, so it's no surprise that someone
might impersonate him online in order to take advantage of trusting individuals.
And that's exactly what happened to this Texan woman. The woman was communicating with
the men through Instagram and Google Hangouts, believing she was talking to the singer himself.
Apparently, ‘Mars’ was interested in pursuing a relationship with her and that he was going to
retire from his concert tour in order to be with her. The woman eventually agreed to help Mars
cover his touring expenses by depositing $100,000 into bank accounts controlled by the scammers.
The names on the accounts may have sounded strangely Nigerian, but true artists
are eccentric, right? Locked Out of Heaven
Chinwendu Azuonwu and Basil Amadi, are now facing charges of money laundering. If convicted,
they could each spend up to 10 years in prison. This 24-karat tragic story is a reminder that not
all relationships formed online are genuine, and that it's important to be cautious when sharing
personal information or financial resources with someone you've never met in person.
Unfortunately, even the cautious get caught. 3 - Worst Best Friend
Nicky Reynolds was excited to be maid of honor at her best friend Angela's second
wedding. And Angela certainly looked beautiful as she walked down the aisle for the second
time. As the two women embraced after the ceremony, Angela whispered in Nicky's ear
that she needed to borrow some money. Nicky was taken aback. She knew that
Angela was going through a divorce, but she had no idea that things were so dire.
Nicky agreed to loan Angela whatever she needed and promised not to tell a soul.
A few weeks later, Angela asked for another loan. She said that her ex-husband had died
in a farming accident and that her share of the money from their divorce settlement would
be increasing dramatically from £5 million to £77 million, so she just needed to float
a little. Angela promised Nicky that she would take care of her once the funds came through,
promising the good life of houses and cars. Angela Kitchener was also secretly dying
of cancer- but, apparently, didn't tell her new husband.
Desperate to help her friend, Nicky loaned her around £27,000, putting the needs of her
dying friend before anything, because Nicky is awesome and we should all be so lucky to have a
friend like that. But it quickly became clear that Angela had no intention of paying the money back.
Wised Up Apparently, Angela
Kitchener had always been a bit of a con artist. Angela's deceit began to unravel when Nicky met
another of Angela’s friends. The friend confided that she had also lent Angela money. They both
got talking about their experiences and realized something wasn't right.
The women decided to investigate further and soon discovered that Angela's claims about her
ex-husband selling a business and dying in a farming accident were all lies. In fact,
he was very much alive and well. Court
Angela was arrested and eventually admitted to two counts of fraud and was jailed for
three-and-a-half years. When released from prison, it’s unknown what will happen between
her and her former friends who might still feel the pinch in their pocket books—nobody
has gotten their money back. 2 - Rich Company Problems
Evaldas Rimasauskas pulled off an incredible feat: he managed to get Google and Facebook
to pay him over $122 million. And he did it by just…asking them for money. Rimasauskas
was born in Lithuania and raised in a small town called Kaunas. He studied
electrical engineering at the Kaunas University of Technology before eventually moving to Riga,
Latvia where he started his own business selling computer parts. It was here that he came up with
his master plan to defraud Facebook and Google. Rimasauskas set up a fake company called Quanta
Computer Inc, which was the same name as a giant Taiwanese hardware manufacturer.
He then registered this company in Latvia and began sending invoices to Google and
Facebook for goods they hadn't ordered. Amazingly, both companies paid up without
question. Invoiced
Rimasauskas's grift was pretty clever. He sent Google and Facebook invoices for items
they hadn't purchased, which the companies then paid. Rimasauskas was extraordinarily
brazen in his scam, going so far as to even register a fake company under the same name as
a real Taiwanese hardware manufacturer, Quanta Computer Inc. Rimasauskas also forged various
documents purporting to be from executives at both Facebook and Google, authorizing the payments.
It wasn't until 2015 that the scam was finally uncovered. Over the course of
two years between 2013 and 2015 Rimasauskas received $99 million from Facebook and $23
million from Google with his forged invoices. Rimasauskas had also routed the money through
various foreign accounts in Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Latvia in an attempt to
make it harder to trace. Luckily authorities were able to catch him before he could disappear
with the money for good –although they were only able to recover around half of what was stolen.
When Lithuanian authorities caught wind of his scheme in 2017 Evaldas was extradited to New
York where he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. In 2019 he was sentenced to 60 months in
prison and ordered to forfeit nearly $50 million as well as pay back close to $26 million more.
It's not clear what's happened to the other $46m, but Rimasauskas was a prolific and
baroque money-launderer who squirreled cash away in Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia,
and Latvia. With $46 million stashed in bank accounts around the world, that five-year prison
sentence will probably fly by pretty quickly! 1 - Just A Little Off the Top
Megan Randolph was sitting at home, scrolling through her phone when she got a text from a
number she didn't recognize. The person on the other end, who identified herself as “Ashley”,
said that she had been referred to Megan, and that Redken beauty products was looking for someone to
shave their head and eyebrows in a video tutorial. Ashley promised it would be quick and easy money,
with no risk involved. Just send a video of herself doing it,
and she’d be paid handsomely for her trouble. Megan Randolph, a former model, was now out of
work and struggling to pay the bills. So when she received a text from someone claiming they could
help her make some quick cash, she was intrigued. Megan was reasonably skeptical, but the caller
seemed legitimate- they knew who she was and had even checked out her work as a model beforehand.
Redken does have a popular campaign offering tutorials on how to style and handle hair at home,
so that only added to the offer's authenticity. Knowing this, shaving all your hair clean off is
a big ask, so Megan decided to investigate the phone number to be sure. It appeared
to be registered to Redken, so she called it and left a voicemail asking about the offer.
After receiving a call back from what sounded like a legitimate business line,
Megan decided to go ahead with the offer; after all, what did she have to lose? Besides,
like, all of her hair…her eyebrows… So on Friday, with her husband Jake
filming, she shaved off all her hair and sent off the video as requested.
Hoaxed As soon as the video was sent, Ashley
pulled a Keizer Sose from the Usual Suspects and vanished, like a puff of smoke. Within minutes,
the phone number was no longer in service, and Megan's new shiny white head turned red.
The job offer had included a free wig and semi-permanent eyebrow makeup for Megan
following the video submission process, but all she was left with was bare skin and regrets.
In the meantime, Jake had set up a GoFundMe page to help raise money for a wig and
eyebrows for Megan. Fortunately,
all Megan lost was her hair and some pride. Click to watch one of these next videos!
Let us know in the comment section how much money it’d take for you to shave your head!