Transcript of Armchair Anonymous: Scams II New

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Randall Shepherd, joined by Lily Padman, and today we have scams part 2.

Scams are sad.

They are sad. Sad warning.

Yeah, but they're interesting and they're informative.

They're very informative.

One of them specifically, I was like, that could definitely have been me.

They're great cautionary tales.

Yes.

Every time I open my email, there's 2 dozen attempts to scam me. My texts, there's They're now attempting to scam me.

The world is out to get you.

Yeah, the world is a vampire. Please enjoy Scams Part 2. Hard times come and go. Good times take them slow. My life, I had them both. But one thing you got to know, I'mma keep on shining. Hi, is this Brie?

Yes.

Oh, wonderful. We don't get to talk to many Bries.

No, and it's an important name in Dax's life.

I'm aware. My full name is Brianne, but I go by Brie.

Since you were a little girl, or did that come later?

It was when I was little and then went away for a while and then came back, like, in my 30s. I decided to reclaim my childhood nickname.

I'm glad you embrace it because, as you know, I hate anything multisyllabic. Maybe because Dax privilege, but I think when people have like 6, 7 syllables, We got to come up with something shorter.

That was honestly part of it was I started to do more public stuff and meeting a lot of more people. And Brie, people get it right away.

Yeah.

And they'll go, oh, remember Brie Cheese?

Oh, wow. I never even thought about that.

That's what people would do with Brie.

Really?

I actually say that.

Yeah.

Wow.

Because as soon as you connect some object to a person, you can remember their name a lot better.

Interesting.

Like Monica Padman. And you think lily pad.

Yeah. Or you think menstrual pad.

Menstrual pad. Maxi pad.

I've never thought that one.

Okay, so, Bri, you have a— well, first of all, where are you?

Not too far from you guys, actually. I'm in L.A. County. My husband doesn't want me to, like, give away too much exact, so I won't say the city, but not too far.

Okay, so you have a scamming story.

I do. Starts back during COVID Me and my husband, home with our kids. We have 3 kids. 2 of them at the time are doing Zoom school in elementary school. We also have a preschooler, so life's crazy. We own a business, so like we're running a small business through COVID where I'm home with the kids working from home. My husband still is able to like go into the office. And so we're spending way more time at home than we ever have with our 3 kids. From the time we moved into this home, we knew it was gonna be like our forever home and we knew eventually we would remodel. So it becomes obvious this is the time we're home all the time. Like let's make this the space we want it to be. So we have this family room that at the time was like an enclosed patio, no insulation, super low ceiling. It had this awful half bath that we called the toilet closet and would like hide from people when they would come over. It had like the office tile type ceiling and like a tin roof. So when it rained, it was insanely loud in there.

So really just the kids used it. They watched TV, had their toys, but we didn't spend time in there as a family. Even though it was a family room. We decide, okay, we're gonna do this remodel. It's a huge project. It's gonna be like half of our house getting demolished and rebuilt. We're in 2021 at this point. It's like a year of planning, architects, getting city approval, all that stuff. And then we're finally at the point in like the summer of 2021 where we're like looking for a contractor. This idea to remodel turns out in the LA area. Not a unique idea. So finding a contractor was really challenging. You know, prices were going crazy. We had refinanced our house.

There were supply chain issues. Lumber was a lot.

Oh my God.

We were doing this at the same time.

Yeah. All three of us.

Half the labor force was missing. It was just a crazy time to like try to get anything done, but we're like, well, is there gonna be a better time? Like maybe the world's ending. So let's just keep moving forward. So we're having a really hard time finding a contractor and like around the same time, one of our friends bought a home and immediately started remodeling. So we're like, hey, give us their contact information. Let's get in touch with them. We email them like, hey, can we set up a time to meet? You can look at our property, we'll go over the plans and get a bid from you guys. So all of that happens. It's end of September. We meet with them. It takes them some time to get a bid to us. So it's December by the time we hear back and we're still trying to get competing bids from like a few other people, but literally just getting ghosted by most of them. And then the ones that we are hearing back from are giving us these like insanely expensive prices, right? So throughout this time we're seeing this company's work cuz they're working on our friend's house and running into the contractor when we're over there, like, oh, hey, got your bid, we're reviewing it, all that.

We'll get back to you soon. It becomes pretty obvious in the spring that We're gonna go with this company. So we start kind of going back and forth over email, going over our questions, the contract, deciding like the exact scope of work. All this time we're also seeing the contractor in person when we go over to our friend's house and just making like little comments like, oh, got your email. Like, we'll get back to you soon, whatever. We get the contract from them and there's one thing that is a little off. They're asking for a 50% materials deposit. To get started. And as you mentioned already, like lumber costs at the time were just through the roof and just kept going up. So their explanation was, well, the only way we could guarantee this price we're giving you right now is if we purchase as much of the materials right now as we can. So we need this big deposit.

It makes logical sense.

I had to do that. Yeah, I did the same thing.

Yeah, I'm sure I did too.

It was like, it keeps going up. So if we buy now, it's smarter than waiting. Normally we would stagger this.

Kind of exact thought process. We're like, well, it makes sense. We get it. We don't want to pay more by waiting. So let's go for it. So we signed the contract, send the deposit, and we get on their calendar for June of 2022. And so this is like a few weeks out at this point. And they're like, okay, we're going to deliver a bunch of materials. So we need like some space in your home. We need to be ready to move out of essentially half of our house and we're going to be living in the house through the construction. So we emptied the whole family room, donated all the furniture, packed up all our stuff, get rid of as much stuff as we can. We're like moving out of our bedroom, me and my husband, cuz that's gonna be part of it. Cleaning out the garage. So all that's done, 2 weeks. It comes to the day where the materials are gonna be delivered and nothing comes.

Hmm.

So it's not that unheard of. There was no panic yet at this point. Maybe things got delayed, they forgot to update us. So it gets to like the end of the day and I just send an email like, Hey, nothing showed up. Can you give us an update? And I have no idea why at this point I realized this, but when I'm sending the email, I notice that two different email addresses pop up, you know, my little dropdown.

Oh, as you start to type in the name.

Yeah. So it's the same beginning, but one of them is a Hotmail and one's an MSN.

Neither trustworthy for me.

Yeah, I agree.

Unless it's Gmail.

Uh-uh.

Well, in this company, they're a little outdated. Like it's not that weird in talking to them. We knew that they were a little behind the times. So I'm like, oh, that's weird. Well, I'll just send the email to both of them. Cause I didn't know which was correct. Next day I'm walking to my kids' school cause I volunteer all the time. I was going to volunteer in the library and I get a response from the contractor confused, responding like, what materials are you referring to? We haven't ordered anything. It looks like we're missing some emails. Can you please advise? My heart just drops. I think at that point I knew.

I'm also so confused cuz you were seeing them face to face.

Yeah.

You were talking about the fact that they had submitted a bid. So now the question is who sent the email, I guess.

Right. I go off to volunteer, just kind of shove everything down, text my husband. I think our money was stolen. Call the contractor right now. And he's like, this whole time it wasn't them. And this is the part that is the hardest part to tell. The part that if I think about it, like I can be back there, the feeling hitting me of this whole dream in like an instant is just gone.

Yeah.

It was a huge amount of money. We'd refinanced our house to like pull out equity to get the money.

Yeah.

God. It just felt like we had like ruined our family's future.

Yeah.

All this guilt and shame, right? Which is so unfair. You're a victim. And yet you feel immediate, I'm not a good steward of all this. I'm supposed to be responsible to my family. All these shameful thoughts.

Exactly. I'm not really a super emotional person, but in that moment it was that shuddered, sobbing, just fell on the couch and was just broken for a while.

So how do we think somebody was privy to the fact that you were talking to them?

And like created this email.

Yeah. How does all that work out? What have you come to find out?

So after speaking to the contractor, it turned out that there was a third party in the middle of all the emails. So they were pretending to be us to the contractor and pretending to be the contractor to us. So the very first two interactions were legit. And then from that point, the email address switches from the correct one to the incorrect one. And we never noticed. The scammer had told them like, oh, here's my correct email address. Don't use this old one, use this new one. So they were sending an email to some random other email address. And that way all the emails, when we're asking questions or like contractor questions and needing contracts and all that, they were able to pull a real contract from this company that had their logo and all the language and just tweak things as they needed to, to make sure that we kept everything in writing over email. All the detailed stuff was all done over email. And there's lots of little hints in there to like make sure we didn't reach out in person. And I think had this been any other contractor, like if we'd picked just some random person and not been seeing them and had this built-in trust, cuz they were down the street.

Yeah.

Like we knew them. Once the fog kind of lifted, there were more red flags that we just attributed to, oh, they're in a rush, little things like that.

How do you start responding? How do you start figuring out how this third entity entered the equation?

It was really just at that point where we talked to the real contractor.

Did someone hack your email or theirs and was reading all the emails and then started putting this together?

They hacked the contractor's email. We're pretty sure. It turns out there's not actually a lot to be done about this. It's a really smart con because of that time lag of we sign the contract, send the money, and then they're like, okay, well, here's the date for when you should expect materials to show up.

Yeah.

Once we investigated with the bank and police reports and all that stuff, they traced the money, but by that point it had moved through multiple accounts that had then been closed. And eventually ended up somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Oh my God. Wow. You read about these scam complexes in Eastern Europe where they are like data centers where all they do is this.

So you weren't able to get any of it back or really find out any concrete anything. Oh, and I have to mention the tax cuts that happened during Trump's first term. One of the little things they snuck into that bill was a change in how you can write off losses. And so before that point, a loss like this, we would've been able to write it off and not pay tax on it. But that bill changed that. So the only losses that you can deduct now are like from natural disasters. And ever since that point, this type of fraud has been hugely on the rise because the government's no longer on the hook for that money.

They're not incentivized to crack down because they're You're not eating the tax liability.

Exactly.

Oh man.

So that one really hurt.

Yeah.

That was like, seriously? We have to pay tax on this money that's gone?

And how long was it a searing pain in your side? Like how long before this dissipates and you find your way back to like, okay, we're gonna live, not the end of the world.

Thankfully, and I will completely acknowledge this is a really privileged problem to have, right? Like, oh, my poor remodel. We were still able to borrow more money to be able to move forward and get the remodel done. So it was probably a few months of a pretty deep depression, honestly, of just like going from this really high point in my life, in our lives, to just kind of feeling like it all fell apart all of a sudden. But then I think once we were able to start moving forward again and Thankfully, we had each other to lean on and we had our kids to sort of be like, well, you gotta fucking get it together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They don't care much about these things. They're great in that way. They're only in today.

Yeah.

This was kind of a final test. I feel like I've had all these weird little signs to submit this story to you guys and just put it out there and like, let it all go. Right. Like let go of the shame and, and maybe. Hopefully help someone else.

Yes. I think anyone who's currently in an email exchange with a contractor talking about a bid will have learned through this that they should get on the phone and get in person.

Maybe shout out to all the millennials who don't like getting on the phone because that is 100% me. I will avoid a phone call at all costs.

Yeah.

Sometimes you got to get on the frickin phone.

That's so hard because you were seeing them. There's zero reason for you to have thought anything. Any red flags?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm so sorry that happened.

Yeah.

Well, how did it turn out?

Is the Our new living room is lovely. We built it all around the ability to have a nice big Christmas tree right in the middle. And so we've now celebrated two Christmases with our big Christmas tree.

Oh, good.

So real quick, I got to say, I'm not really into The Sims. I know you guys love The Sims. You talk about it all the time. But I had not listened to Armchair Anonymous when it first started. I was like, eh, I don't have time for more content.

That's how we feel.

Last year, I finally gave in and started listening to it sometimes with my kids. I'm like, OK, this is funny. This is a good show. And so at the beginning of this year, I decided to go all the way back to 2022 and start them from the beginning. And like the third episode in is your guys's first scam episode. So I listened to it in January of this year. I was like, oh my God, if they ever do this prompt again, I guess I'll have to submit this story.

Yeah.

That's so mean.

And then literally the next month, the prompt comes up and I told my husband. And he really was not into me doing this. He's supportive, but he was like, really, do you want to air out this story for like the whole world? But I was like, I have to. Like, the world is telling me I have to.

Very Sim. Whether there's a Sim or not, it's still Sim.

That's right.

And I gotta say, on the scale of embarrassment, I think the harder ones are like when you've come to trust a person in real life and then they betray you and they were always going to betray you. Yours is pretty low on the, I think, anything that you could feel dumb about because you weren't even looking at anyone, you know.

I don't see how anyone wouldn't have ended up in this situation if they were in your shoes.

I knew you guys would make me feel better about it, but I'll tell you, at the time we felt pretty dumb. Yeah, this is so cool. Thank you guys so much. Quick shout out to my daughter who's turning 16 next week. She's gonna listen to this with me when it comes out. My husband and my fellow armchair Becky.

Well, shout out Becky. Happy birthday, daughter. All right, take care.

Bye.

Scams are mean.

Yeah, they're not nice.

I got to shout out my contractor, Bill. He's just so nice. He didn't scam me. In fact, he's like losing money on me.

You can make more money just being upfront. Is it Lee?

It's Leah.

Leah. Your name always scares me when I see it. I'm going to be honest.

It could go either way.

It's a common one that's confused a lot.

Well, let me ask you, can it go another way or is the H always Leah? You could educate me now. Are some Lees— or maybe I'm getting confused with L-E-I-G-H.

I feel like H should always be Leah, but I do get Lee a lot, so there's got to be some people out there spelling it with H. I can't be the only one.

Where's all this confusion is coming from? Where are you, Leah?

I am in Fishers, Indiana.

Okay, Fishers, Indiana. Where is that?

It's like a suburb right outside of Indianapolis.

Oh, okay. Somewhere on that big loop?

Yes, right outside the upper east corner of the loop.

For people who don't know, when you're coming south from Michigan through Indiana, you're presented with this loop and you can either go east or west. And you don't know, you don't know as a Michigander. They're conceivably the same length, but the traffic will certainly be different. Interesting.

That's metaphorical.

Oh, true.

Life.

Sure, sure.

We never know how long that loop is going to take.

Exactly.

Play the loop lottery. Okay, so Leah, you have been scammed or you scammed somebody, we don't know. We've not yet had a scammer, but it could happen.

I was scammed.

Okay, I'm so sorry. Please tell us.

Okay, so this story takes place in 2016. I am pregnant with my first baby, and something to know about me is that I'm a very Type A person. So I took on pregnancy like it was a checklist. One of the things I knew I needed to do before baby's arrival was to schedule a newborn photographer. You're supposed to get your newborn photos done 10 days after.

Oh, that's the sweet spot.

That's supposed to be the sweet spot.

Okay.

When they're the most cuddly and bendable and sleepy to get the cute poses. Of course, what does one do in 2016? But I get onto Facebook.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And I make a post to my family and friends. Does anyone have any recommendations? What do you guys think? And really quickly, I get a message back from my cousin and she's like, hey, I used to work with this one girl, super sweet. She quit her job to pursue photography full-time. She's super nice. I think you'll love her. Reach out. So I go to her Facebook page, I go to her website. She has glowing reviews. She's a mom to two small kids. She volunteers her photography to you know, local hospitals. And I'm like, okay, this person's great. Reach out. She calls me pretty quickly and we have a great conversation. She's super nice going over all the pricing packages and she's like, hey, right now I'm actually offering a promotion where if you pay for your newborn session in full, I'll actually give you a maternity session for free. And I'm like, hard pass on the maternity session.

Oh, yeah, I don't want a stranger in there.

Well, I just wasn't feeling beautiful at that time. I didn't need to remember my double chin I was having at that time. So I was like, could I just get a newborn session at a discount? And she's like, yeah, sure. Knocks a little bit off the price and then sends me her Zelle info. I pay her really quick.

Did it seem expensive, modest? Where did the price come in for you?

It was a little more than I was hoping to spend, but her pictures were good and she was highly recommended. With the discount, it was like, oh, well, this is exactly where I wanted to be.

Shopping math.

So I go ahead and send her the payment. And mind you, I have like another trimester here to go. I'm like really ahead of the game. So I check it off, put it out of my mind. Well, 39 weeks rolls around, reach out, hey, can we schedule something? I hear nothing.

Uh-uh.

40 weeks, reach out, call, message, nothing. 41 weeks, I go and deliver my baby. It is a rough delivery. Had something called a third-degree tear. I don't recommend it.

Oh, I don't like the sound of that.

That's worse than a second-degree tear, presumably?

It is.

Yeah.

It goes up to 4.

Ah.

4 is the absolute worst.

Okay.

So don't—

Don't go to 4.

So don't get mad.

Don't push it.

Yeah. Takes me a couple days, needless to say, before I reach out. I'm home, I send her a picture of my baby. I'm like, hey, here's my beautiful baby. Can we please schedule something? And she replies and she's like, oh my God, so sorry. Yes, I've been busy. Let's schedule for this day, 9:00 AM. Here's the address, see you there. So again, I'm gonna make sure I'm prepared for this session, right? So I stay up all night feeding this newborn baby like every 2 hours. She's gonna get a feeding right before we leave and she's gonna be super well fed and happy.

Docile.

Yeah, for this session. So I do, I get like no sleep, but by God she is fed and we're leaving, packing the diaper bag, getting ready to go. Well, I get a text message as soon as we're leaving and it's from the photographer and she's like, I'm so sorry, my toddler just fell down the stairs. I think she has injured herself. I need to take her to the emergency room to get her checked out. I can't meet you this morning. And of course I'm like, absolutely no problem. Take care of your kid. Let me know. And she's like, if everything checks out, I'll call you and maybe we can meet later today. Hours go by. I don't hear anything. Late afternoon, I reach out to her and I'm like, hey, how is your daughter? Is everything okay? And she sends back this long message about how horrible the day's been. You know, it's taking forever to see a doctor. They are still waiting on X-rays. Yada, yada, yada. And I'm just like, no worries, we can reschedule for a few days later. But for some reason, and I can't tell you why, but I just feel in my gut that I'm not getting the full story.

So I feed my baby, give her to my husband, get my very broken postpartum ass into the car, and I'm driving to this studio. I just need to go and I need to find out what's going on because I just, just feel wrong. So I drive the 30 minutes to the studio, never been there, and I get there and it is indeed a photography studio, but the name on the door is not her name. There's no one there, but there's a phone number listed. I call the phone number and the owner of the studio answers, and I'm like, hey, give her a short rundown of the story. I'm supposed to meet this photographer at your studio today, Do you know her? And she's like, yes, I do indeed know her. She used to rent photography space in my studio, but she quit paying me. I asked her for my key back. She hasn't given me my keys. I just had to have all my locks replaced on my doors.

Oh boy.

So I'm like, great. Any chance you're free to do a newborn photography session?

Good. You pivoted. Yeah.

And she's like, no, really busy. Oh, okay. Can't help you. I'm like, well, do you think I'll at least get my money back? And she's like, I doubt it, but good luck to ya. And so at this point I'm sleep deprived, hormonal, and I'm just losing my mind. All I want to do is have my little newborn baby's photo taken. So I call my husband and I'm hysterical trying to grasp the ridiculousness of the situation. So I reach out to this woman when I get home and I'm just like, talk to the owner of the studio that you told me we were going to. Doesn't seem legit. I don't think you're being honest with me. Can I please have my money back? And she doubles down on her lie.

Oh.

And she's like, how dare you? Tell me that I'm a liar. This is a family emergency. You don't know what you're talking about. So I'm just like, you know what, lady, can I just have my money back, please? I'm happy to go on my own way. She's like, sure, I'll send it to you. Give me your Zelle info. Day goes by, another day goes by. I never get anything back. So I'm like, okay, well, at least I'm going to go on her Facebook page and I'm going to write a review and I'm going to warn other mothers to be like, just don't book this woman. Save yourself the drama. And I hadn't been on there in months. When I was there before, it was nothing but glowing reviews. But of course, as soon as I log on, there are a multitude of just multiple reviews of how other people have been scammed by this woman.

I wonder what happened in her life where she turned from legit to a criminal.

Exactly. Because that is obviously what happened.

Drug habit.

Yeah. I reached out to my cousin after this went down and I was like, please don't recommend this person anymore. So she reached out to a couple of friends and apparently she She'd recently gotten divorced and had kind of been going off the deep end ever since. She wasn't even in town anymore and was just reaching out to people to schedule these. And there were much bigger sessions she was booking.

Well, people probably bought that bigger package.

Exactly. The Grow With Me package.

Grow With Me. Yeah.

It's a thing, Monica.

Yeah.

I know, I know, I know. You have to take your baby's picture every 3 months or you're a terrible mother. This is the things that they talk you into doing. That's what we have iPhones, guys. I was never that person to do that.

Do it.

But there was even a bride that had her entire wedding shot, and she did the wedding, shot it, but then never gave her the photos.

Oh, fuck.

So I don't know, something led to the divorce, and then the vortex accelerated.

It does sound druggish.

It sounds either druggish or bipolar-ish.

Yeah, yeah, hard to say. And she was a mom herself. She had tons of pictures of her two kids, so it was just kind of wild.

Who'd you end up getting to take those photos? How far out were we?

I did find someone that my neighbor recommended. I didn't get it in the 10-day window.

It's gonna be okay.

Did your baby look so ugly?

Yeah, she wasn't as sleepy and as beautiful as she could have been, but it still worked out. They came out nice.

Oh, good, good.

But I did share with Emma my drama didn't quite end there. I also had my daycare provider snub me 2 days before I started work too. Postpartum time for me was really, really hard.

Wait, what's with these photos I'm gonna see? Oh, your baby looks so cute! Oh, it's a tiny little girl.

She's so adorable. This turned out perfect.

Wait, and now she's a big sister to what, twins? Is that what I'm seeing?

No.

So the picture on the beach is the baby. The oldest was the baby. And then I've had a second since.

Oh, I'm looking at one with a little person holding two babies.

So that is when we got kicked out of the daycare. Oh, two months later. So I got kicked out of the daycare two days before I started work. And so did my sister. I called my sister and was like, your daycare provider isn't going to take my baby. And she's like, she just kicked out my kids too. So that was our Instagram post to be like, what are we going to do?

Uh, do you love having two little girls?

They are 9 and 6, and they're the best.

Oh, well, you wouldn't know it by looking at the photo that this wasn't 10 days later. This seems right.

Maybe it worked out because maybe there would have been a little more wrinkles.

Yeah, more redness.

Exactly.

That baby—

yeah, that ugly skin pops up. Yeah, they get all of a sudden baby-onset acne, which was rough.

That actually gets really—

here it does get gnarly.

You can tell the parents are insecure about it. Yeah, that's the main thing is like, I'm always like It's fine. I know they start talking about it immediately. Yeah. Oh, she, she's just got, they said it's just, it's just baby acne.

It's gonna go away.

It's like, no, I know hers was really bad. It takes everything to ignore it and be like, this is fine. She's supposed to look this way. So, and then again, that's why you get 'em done so early. The face is smooth.

Where their faces break out.

Wow.

Oh, well, it's lovely meeting you, Leah.

Yes.

Yes.

If you'll indulge me for a quick minute.

Of course.

Needless to say, I kind of told you that I'm very Type A and had a lot of things go wrong within not only these two things, but had a lot of things go down within my first couple months of having my baby. I was diagnosed with postpartum depression and anxiety. Really, really severe. Really, really awful time for me. And I can't believe I'm talking to you guys The most challenging part of my life was the 3 years after having my first daughter, Alice. I would sit in my car and be terrified of just being alone in my brain, 'cause when you are that depressed and anxious, your thoughts feel like a prison. And the only thing that could get me out was listening to stories.

Aw.

And listening to you guys. And I remember your first interview with like Pete Wentz when you were like, what medication are you taking? And what therapy are you doing? And I was like, oh my God, Oh my God, other people take medication and I'm not alone.

Yeah, I'm not broken and defective.

I was so ashamed of how horribly I was struggling and I felt like such a failure as a person and as a mom. And it's a week until my birthday and to get to meet both of you guys, it is the best gift ever.

Oh, Leah.

I'm sorry you were going through that.

That's so hard.

I'm glad we were helpful.

Yeah, if anyone's listening, it does get better. That is my biggest message.

That is the problem when you're in it is you believe this is the rest of your life. As I always say, you're never having a great time and go, oh fuck, I bet I'm gonna feel elated for the rest of my life. You know damn well you're not gonna feel elated. And then the same is true on the other side.

You're afraid it's never gonna end, but it does get better.

Well, thank you for the birthday. Happy birthday.

I think we're like really close in age, Monica, a few months older than you.

Oh, so you're turning 39? Okay, nice.

So I agree with you a lot. Thank you, Monica. Just so you know, like, we're really close. Close in age, and I feel like we get each other a lot. Oh, love it.

You're equally annoyed with me at times, hopefully.

I always see both sides of both great arguments, always. Me and Monica grew up at the same timeline, so we sync a lot.

You had the Flintstones vitamins.

I did. I tried to get my kids to eat them. They don't like them.

The new kids, their tastes are too—

well, this shit got better, you guys, is what happened. The gummies are delicious. There's some nice chalky— I love that All right, well, happy birthday. Be well. Great meeting you.

Thank you, guys.

All right, take care.

Hey.

Hi. Hello. I don't want to say your real name. Have you picked out a fake name?

I haven't.

I was hoping you guys would be able to pick for me.

I hate to be pedestrian, but I'm going with Brian.

Okay, I like that.

Do you have any objections to Brian? Have you been bullied by Brian?

Never been bullied by Brian or called Brian before, so that works.

Okay, perfect, perfect. And where are you?

I'm located in New York City, but the story is going to take place in Hoboken, New Jersey.

I felt like it might be in New Jersey.

You did?

I did, I did. Well, shit goes down in Jersey, let's just acknowledge that, right?

There is a lot. I'm gonna set the picture for you. Okay, I'm in my young 20s right now. I'm fresh out of a relationship. And Hoboken is known for a lot of their bars. So I'm going out to the bars, meeting new friends every weekend. I'm not thinking anything of it. 2 weeks after just binging the bars nonstop, I get an Instagram follower. My account's private. So I'm like, all right, this is strange. I don't remember talking to this person at the bar. Also, I'm in my young 20s. So I'm meeting everybody out there.

Was it a hot girl in the photo?

It was.

Yeah.

Hormones are going wild at this point. So I accept the follow request. They actually reach out to me and we're DMing back and forth nonstop. It comes to a point, it's like late at night, they start setting the mood. They're like, why don't we take this conversation to Snapchat? Oh, so as a young person on Snapchat, you're gonna be sending pictures back and forth really quick.

And the promise of Snapchat was they evaporate, they evaporate right away.

So you open up, it evaporates. If you take a screenshot, the other person's notified that so-and-so took a screenshot of your picture. So they're going back and forth. Things are seeming to get pretty hot. The pictures that they're sending back look 100% real.

Like they're in someone's bedroom kind of thing.

Exactly. They're sending videos. I'm thinking that this is real life.

The most exciting night of real life.

Definitely. We're going back and forth. Then they're like, why don't you send a video of you and I'll send a video of myself? They want nudes.

Yeah, of course.

So I'm like, you know, I'm not really comfortable doing this right now. I don't even think I even met you. Yeah. So all of a sudden they're like, okay, I'll send one first so you can see that it's real and I'll send you a video. But then they're like, don't take a screenshot or anything. So I'm like, okay, fine. So they send it. I'm like, this is great. It's real.

Life can be magical.

So I'm not thinking anything. They're like, can you send a picture of yourself now? So I send a quick photo.

Shirtless or your dick?

At first it was shirtless.

Okay, very safe.

And then they're like, no, I want to see your face and everything else. So I'm like, all right, fine. Let me cover up a little bit so I'm not showing too much and I'll send a picture. And I guess there was a mirror in the back that kind of captured a little bit of my face that I had no idea about. I wasn't even thinking about it.

You're in an accelerated state of mind.

Yeah. All of a sudden they take a screenshot of it and I had no idea because they were using some third-party app and within seconds they send me a screenshot of my picture. And they start demanding a payment of $700.

No!

I am at this point sweating bullets. I'm like, what the fuck did I just get myself into right now? I'm like, I have a kickball game in 30 minutes. Now this person's blackmailing me for $700. I'm like, what the hell did I just get into? I'm like, I don't know what to do. I'm freaking out. I'm in my early 20s. I can't call anybody and be like, yeah, I just sent this person like a shirtless picture and now they're blackmailing me. I'm freaking out.

Account.

So I'm like, you know what, let me just send the $700 and then it'll be over.

Oh no.

They send me a Venmo account of who they want the money to go to. I send the $700. I think it's over at that point. Within seconds of them receiving payment, they're like, now we want $1,200.

Jesus Christ.

I am mortified right now. I have no idea what to do.

It's now 10 minutes to the kickball game.

I know, what are you gonna do?

I'm freaking out. And then all of a sudden reality, I don't know what the heck happened, but it just clicks in. And I'm like, you know what, send the fucking picture to everybody. Yeah, let all my followers, let the world see my picture. I don't care. They're like, it doesn't work like that. They tried to get me to send the additional $1,200, and I'm like, no, because they're gonna want that, then they're gonna want more. Exactly. I'm like, this isn't happening. Send the pictures. So then I close out of everything, I start reporting the account, I get my friends to report the account. I did a little researching myself to find out that Venmo account and what other Venmo accounts it might be linked to. I find Facebook pages of the user. So then I'm messaging them. I start digging up everything from this user and I start reporting it all. And I call Venmo. Meanwhile, my kickball game already started. I'm late. I called the captain. I'm like, I'm not going to make it. I'm dealing with some stuff right now.

I'm in the middle of a high stakes blackmail situation.

So then I call up Venmo. Venmo, they are zero help. Venmo is like, it's your own fault. There's nothing that we can do about it. I call up my bank and they helped me tremendously. They wound up helping me get my initial $700 back.

Really?

So I got my money back. They tried to blackmail me for an additional $1,200. It didn't work out. The account itself wound up getting terminated and I guess kicked off of Instagram. I guess I like to go, I broke even that night.

God bless that bank.

I know.

Because I might be like the bank too, like, bro, you know, You did all this, you know? Yeah, it sucks, but you learned a $700 lesson, I guess.

Thanks, dude.

Tried.

I wish Venmo would have flagged their Venmo account.

That's what I was trying to get them to do in the first place. I gave them the user's name, I gave them the payment subs and everything, and I'm like, this user is scamming. Luckily my bank helped me, but there's probably 100 or more users out there that actually got scammed, and who knows who actually sent them the $1,200 payment. I mean, like, I stopped after the first one, but it just kept on going on and Well, I got to say, there is some genius to the first number.

$700. If they would have started with $1,200, would you have done it?

Probably not.

I know.

Like, I think they figured out what the threshold is.

Like, that hurts, but in your mind it's like, okay, it's also a substantial amount of money, enough that they just gained $700. Like, if you said like $100, that's not enough for them for sure.

Somewhere along the way they figured out out. That's not an accident, the $700.

Now it's just like a fun thing between friends. Like, if I owe one of my friends money and I'm like, oh, how much do I owe you? That are just all like $700. I'm like, no, that's never happening again.

Oh wow, I'm glad you got your money back.

I know a few friends of mine who have engaged in a correspondence in DMs, and ultimately the person's always like, yeah, I want to come see you, but I need this for the bus fare, or I got— I had a hospital thing, you know. I know, it was crazy.

But I live to tell the story now.

Oh, wonderful. Well, I'm flattered we have you listening.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

All right, take care, brother.

Bye.

What a sweetie pie. He was so cute.

I can't believe he listens to us, this little young boy.

I know, a playful personality.

Glad he got his money back.

Me too.

We would have had to pay him.

The whole time I was hearing the story, do you want to know what I was thinking? I was like, huh, because I've never used this Snapchat chat. I was like, wait, it goes away? You want to be able to look at that for a minute. Like, how quickly does it go away? Do you guys know?

I don't know.

You can't admit to knowing, either of you?

I don't know.

I've never been on Snapchat. But you need some time. How quickly does it disappear? I got scared. I know, because you see a fun video and then just once—

I don't know. And then why wouldn't you be able to take— oh, it tells you.

Yeah, but then you're, you're outed.

But then you could just have another phone videoing.

Oh, that's a good No, smart for the listener. Yeah, you outsmarted that one.

What I usually do is have another phone.

Sure. Third.

Hello?

Hello, Trina?

Yes, I'm Petrina. Nice to meet you.

Do you go by Petrina or Trina? I have two different things on my piece of paper.

Petrina is my real name.

Petrina. Petrina, where are you?

I'm in Australia.

Oh, get the fuck out from Down Under. What time is it there? Well, let me guess. Oh, it must be very, very early.

Is it tomorrow?

Is it 5 AM?

It's tomorrow.

Yes. I am in the future. No, not that early. It's about quarter to 7 in the morning.

Oh, quarter to 7.

How's your morning going?

Not too bad. Just gotten up and all excited and ready to go.

What kind of weather do we have this time of year? It's fall for you guys.

Yeah, still quite hot though where I am. We've got big rain events happening at the moment, which is causing a bit of chaos in some parts of the state, but quite nice here today. It's blue skies and sunshine.

Sunshine.

Are you in Sydney?

More northern part. So in Brisbane.

Okay. Is that part of the Gold Coast? Did I get that right?

Yeah, we're north of the Gold Coast.

Okay. Do you care about the Australian Grand Prix? It was just last weekend.

I've seen some highlights, but no, not something I follow closely. No. Okay.

So I didn't think people got scammed anywhere but the US.

Did it happen in the United States?

No, unfortunately it was here in Australia.

Okay.

All right.

People all over the place who do that, unfortunately. So mine's a a bit of an uplifting story in the end, I think, personally. So this took place back in about 2009, 2010. I can't remember exactly, but I was living here in Brisbane, Australia, and I was about 22 at the time, living by myself with my 2-year-old child. I just recently split up from the child's father, but I was living by myself, had good jobs, was able to support myself. So that was all very well and good. After about a year, my friends encouraged me to start putting myself out there instead of moping around about the separation, and I was reluctant reluctant as a single parent to start dating again, but I did get onto the online dating sites.

Can I ask, was your reluctance that you were nervous, like, how will I introduce the person to my child? Or was your reluctance, I have a child and no one's going to like me?

Bit of both, really. Didn't really want to introduce a stranger or have the expectation that they had to take the part of a parent. I was quite happy to do that by myself, but it was, yeah, a bit of an awkward scenario to come across when you're of that age.

Yeah, yeah.

But there was someone I eventually met. Let's call him Justin. We hit it off pretty well at the start. He was normal, easygoing. We had good back and forth conversation, which is rare back then and still rare now to get that two-way conversation going. He did take a genuine interest in me, wasn't too intrusive with questions or push boundaries with anything. So we took things pretty slow.

What was he advertising as his age?

He was, I think, 24 is what he advertised his age as. And we did meet in person after a few conversations. Things went smoothly and we dated pretty casually for a little while. And I did eventually introduce him to my child. He got along really well with the child, would play into the little games that 2-year-olds like to do and would bring little gifts and make things really nice for both of us, really.

He was sweet.

Yeah, it wasn't what I would consider a love bombing stage or anything like that, but it was kind. Things progressed and he'd stay over for a night or two every week. I met some of his friends. We'd hang out when we both finished work. Look, it was nice, it was uncomplicated, and he was willing to take things slow, which was nice for me getting back into that environment. So probably in hindsight, I was a very naive 22-year-old and was looking at things through rose-colored glasses, and there were things that probably should have got my spidey senses tingling. So things like he had his own landscaping business, and worked at all these random places, but he didn't have a car to get around. He was vague about where he lived. I wasn't able to go to his house. He wouldn't tell me his company name. And then just things like he was a landscaper, worked hard all day every day, but didn't really come home sweaty or dirty. Yeah, which is a bit strange. He'd get dropped off and picked up from my house by his work friends, but it was always different people, different cars, and they'd call him different names.

At the time, I brushed it off thinking he's just a private person. He's got different nicknames at work to what he goes by and didn't really think too much of it.

Did you even go so far as to imagine like, oh, maybe he wants me to think he owns it, but he doesn't and he's embarrassed?

I did.

But I also thought, who cares? He's making a living. He's giving it a hard slog at whatever it is. I've had doubts about how serious this business he owned was, but it's his life at the end of the day, and he didn't owe me anything to get into the nitty-gritty of it, so that was fine at the time. So we're probably about 3 months in at this point, and myself and my child, we went on a holiday with my parents and my family. We were away for about a week and a half. It was a pre-planned holiday. We weren't in a situation where I felt the need to invite him, but he did offer to check on my house while I was gone, water the plants, and just tend to things while I was gone, and I was quite happy with that, so I left him a spare key. We spoke really regularly during the trip. No red flags, nothing out of the norm, just really sweet conversations saying it was exciting for me to come back, missing me, those types of things. And he said he'd stopped in to check on the house, everything was fine, and for us to have a really great time.

And we were, but I was excited to get back because of all the sweet things that were being said about all the exciting things I'd look forward to get back to.

Yeah, you're 22.

Yeah, exactly. The day came and we arrived back home. It It was pretty early, it was about 6:30, 7 o'clock in the morning, and he was meant to pick us up. I'd reconfirm the time with him the night before and that was all fine, but he wasn't there.

And where's there, a train station or the airport?

Yeah, it was a train station actually. So he was running a bit late. I sent the rest of my family off saying, oh, I'm sure he'll be here soon. They took my child with them, they had a car seat, so that was all good. I waited about an hour and he never showed up. So didn't answer any calls or texts.

Does he have your I didn't think he did at the time.

So I had someone else pick me up and took me home. I pulled up to my house and I noticed that the security door was latched open, which is not something I would usually do. It's a little bit out of the ordinary, but the main door was locked, so I didn't think anything of it. I went inside and I was just really confused. There was junk everywhere, but nothing else. No furniture, no appliances, artwork, jewelry, money boxes, all gone. Went to my garage. Garage car was gone. It was only about a 2-year-old car. It was very nice, very new. Oh, spare fridge gone, main fridge gone. Like, all the food that was in it was just in a pile on the counter.

It was like moving truck style.

Yeah, well, that comes into it. I had some of my grandparents' belongings at the house, a wooden boat that my grandfather had handmade and painted. It was gone. All those really, you know, important family heirlooms. In my bedroom, I walked in, there was a lamp on the floor and then just pile of my clothes just in the middle of the room.

Oh my God.

There was like food packets, alcohol cans just scattered around the place. My outdoor furniture was gone. So my child's bedroom at the time was the only door that was closed in the entire place. And I was just so anxious to open it, thinking that, look, if all their things had gone, it was just making me sick. The thought that that had been violated as well was just unimaginable to me. But I opened the door. And surprisingly, it seemed to be the only room that was intact.

So he's like a 90% monster?

Yeah. Okay.

He drew the line at the kid. He probably was going to, but then he remembered like, oh, this kid, and I gave him presents.

I can totally relate to that moment. I can imagine going like, yeah, how dark is this person?

How bad am I going to be today?

Yeah, exactly. I did later do a bit of an inventory of the room, and And I did work out the only things that were taken were the gifts that he had actually given my child earlier in the relationship. So that was a bit strange, but everything else was there, luckily. So my initial thought when I'd gone into the house was that the house had been broken into, and I was, you know, panicked and worried about him because had he gotten caught up in it or something like that? Calls and texts not going through, not answering, and then they stopped going through altogether. It's like not sent kind of situation.

Blocked.

Yes, that's when I realized what had actually happened. He was obviously involved in the whole scenario of emptying the house and stealing the car. I called and made a report to the police. They came straight over, took all the details, put out the BOLO on the car for it to be flagged, told me they'd be in contact, started making that inventory list. And later on that night, they called me down to the police station. So I gave them a proper written statement, and after that, they explained that they'd looked him up in the system and he had an excessive record of this similar pattern of behavior. Extensive record of different aliases, charges of fraud, theft, and all in very similar circumstances around this kind of dating a person scenario and then ripping them off, essentially. Wow.

And that person can probably be juggling multiple marks at once.

Possibly. So the really interesting thing that I then found out about that is with the timing, they let me know he had only recently been released from prison, and I had actually started speaking to him within a day or two of him being released. So I I had no idea that that was him. There was no landscaping business, there was no job. He was literally fresh out of prison, straight on the dating sites to repeat his pattern. So he was on parole. One of the friends that I'd met earlier, he was actually released from prison while we were in that sort of dating period. So I met him the day he came out of prison, had no idea. I knew it was just material possessions at the end of the day, but I was like humiliated. I was angry and I was hurt.

I was going to say ask you, was it so hard to call your parents and tell them what happened?

Yeah, I don't even recall doing it, but I ended up staying at their place. I wasn't feeling safe at my house for that little while. But then I got really angry and I went into like a full investigator mode. I went and door knocked my neighbors. They were surprised to see me. They said, oh, we thought you had left. Like, we thought you had moved out because we saw that big moving truck here a couple of days out. And it ended up being like the second day I was away on that holiday was when all this went down. So he was talking to me that whole time, everything's fine, yep, house is fine. Meanwhile, he's got this moving truck at my house loading it up with all of my possessions. It was a very distinctive truck as well, so I was able to pass that information on to the police. But I did my own research and I found out it was a secondhand store that did him the duty of coming and collecting all my belongings and moving it away. And they paid him $2,000 for my entire house.

Your whole life?

Oh my God.

The police issued a warrant. I was able to go and collect the belongings that was still there, but apparently most of it had been sold, which I didn't believe. But I did get my grandfather's handmade wooden boat back.

That's the irreplaceable thing.

Exactly. The car was eventually tracked down. He had dropped it just over state lines, literally a couple hundred meters into the next state, and that made the recovery of that really difficult. But I did get it back. It was damaged and trashed, but it was repairable in end. So I did gather things back, which was good, but he was still out and about at this time, which made me worried. He knew where I lived. He did randomly send me a text, I think 2 months after, just saying sorry, but then he was arrested about a week later. He was sent back to jail. He pleaded guilty, so I didn't have to go to court.

What was he doing when they picked him up?

He had gotten to a state where he'd run out of money and went back to his mother's house. I'd actually reached out to his mother and let her know what was happening. And she just said, look, I'm sorry, it's a hard lesson for you to learn. And I don't know where he is, but he showed back up at his mum's house. She either turned him in or convinced him to turn himself in. I'm not sure. But he was in jail for 9 or so months and was ordered to pay restitution. So it was about $30,000 in the end was the amount of damage and things that he'd taken. He got $2,000 for it. But this was over 15 years ago, and I'm still getting paid $20 a week restitution to pay off this bill. Really? I didn't even get any restitution for probably the first 5 years because he was still paying off from the previous crimes that he'd committed and the other people he'd done it to. That was a really horrible way to get back into the dating scene. It took a really big toll on me overall. It eroded a lot of trust that I have with relationships, and it made me second-guess my own judgment, which is one of the worst things.

But also, like you touched on at the start, The thought that I'd brought somebody into my child's life who was not the sort of person that I wanted them to be around, and that could have gone a lot of different ways. It was really scary and really hard for me to get past.

This is what I absolutely hate about these situations, is someone gets completely abused and then they're left to feel terrible. Oh, it's the cruelest of all crimes.

Yeah, it was really horrible and it affected me for quite a few years. I turned that into a hyper-independence and threw myself into my career. Eventually was able to buy my own house and build my own safe environment back around me. I did eventually get counseling for it a few years on. I probably should have done it earlier.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it did really help me to reframe the experience and empower me to forgive myself and forgive the situation, which was really good. I haven't really dated since then, so it's been quite a few years now, but hopefully my next chat with you guys is a meet cute scenario.

Yeah.

I hope so.

Yeah, well, that kind of experience really gives the shadow voice that we all have a lot of proof.

Unfortunately, it gives it some validity that it shouldn't have.

Fuck.

God, I hate that guy.

Petrina, I'm so mad about this.

Yeah, unfortunately happens in Australia too.

I guess it's good to know it also happens.

It feels a little better for us. Yeah, I feel like every 5 seconds someone—

something horrible is happening here.

It does.

So wait, baby's now what, 17 or 18?

Yeah, all grown up, got their license, growing their own little independence. I think we are living a really great life and we're very privileged to live the life we have. And I do think that that scenario that I went through helped form some of that direction. So as bad as it was at the time and for many years afterwards, I'm happy that I've ended up where I am now.

Good. Wow.

So nice to meet you.

Yeah, incredibly nice to meet you.

Yeah, you guys too.

We love that you're on on the other side of the world listening.

Yeah, means a lot.

I'm trying to grow the Cherry group. Hopefully we get that spike. Have a great day, guys. Bye-bye.

Oh, I'm mad. How can people be that mean?

Oh, people are really mean, but then people are really nice. Like, the ones we're talking to are really nice.

Yes, and there's more of us than them. Can I count myself? I know, I could tell. I could be Resistance. I have not scammed anyone.

I know that. I just feel like that guy, when he was stealing the stuff and then he was gonna go in the bed, like, so much was going on psychologically. He didn't steal from the kid, then he did take his presents back. There's a lot. That's complex.

Yeah, I mean, the bottom line is, who would I rather be, him or her? I'd rather be her. I don't think your life when you're that way is I don't think you're winning when you're doing that. I think you live with all that. I just don't think anyone's footloose and fancy-free unless they're a sociopath.

Right?

Yeah.

Unless they've been gifted with sociopathy.

It's just so sad because it robs the other person more than the stuff. It's like a sense of safety in the world, a sense of safety about yourself. It's so damaging. So damaging. Yeah. Just be careful out there.

Be careful. Wonderful. We love you.

Love you.

Do you want to sing a tune or something?

We know a theme song.

Oh, okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions on the fly. Rhyme dish, on the fly rhyme dish. Enjoy.