Con Artists During the Pandemic

Perhaps I’m a bit pessimistic or just flat out a grumpy old lady writing this post. I’ve found a little nugget on Facebook I have to write about. It’s a pandemic help site for the surrounding area. If you’re in need of something you post. Then, if someone has what you’re in need of, they respond. I applaud the creators because I’m sure it’s helped a ton of people.

Unfortunately, con artists have flooded this site and what’s sandwiched between the folks that really need help are these slime balls using this page as their personal ATM. I am in awe of what some of these people request. From an early age we were taught we need the necessities to live such as food and shelter. In my mind, this site is primarily to fulfill those basic needs, not a Dear Santa, I want this situation. I want to shake the kind people that have given to some of these con artists and yell, “what’s wrong with you man!”

It’s like they all follow the same handbook of conning because many of the posts are ironically the same situation. The theme I see in many posts are as follows:

• someone’s dying
• the dying person is usually in a neighboring state
• they don’t have gas to get to the neighboring state
• if someone’s not dying, someone is getting out of the hospital
• the person in trouble rarely responds to replies where people offer resources in lieu of cash
• they often end the post with “God Bless”

I’ve had a few run-ins with con-artists so this ain’t my first rodeo. Trust me. Con artists are all around us. Take the gas station for instance. On more than one occasion I’ve been stopped there with the same story of “I just need a few dollars for gas.” I think at this point I’d give someone money if they’d just tell me the truth.

So why don’t we get started. Again, you may think all of these are legit and if you do, great. I don’t.

KFC IS NECESSARY DAMN IT!

The audacity of this post is mind-boggling. Just read it and I want you to take a look at the time it was posted too.

Has this person ever heard of “beggars can’t be choosers?” KFC? My husband went there a few weeks ago and said the prices are out of control. I think the icing on the cake is the fact that they wanted someone to pay for the meal to be delivered! And they had a tip included too!

In what reality is this ok? This is a pandemic help page, not a meal delivery service. And I swear to God, if someone gave these people $47, I want to throat punch them.

God Bless

This is just an example of the God Bless. It’s like they think if they bring God into the situation, someone’s going to run to their Venmo account and immediately transfer funds. I don’t think so buddy.

It’s My Birthday

At least she acknowledges that she is posting a “want”. What she doesn’t understand though is if you’re on this page, Roosters should never, ever be asked for. Roosters is an Ohio chain restaurant that sells, you guessed it, wings but it’s not cheap. For our family of 4, the bill is never under $60.

Laundry

So what do you want? Someone to Venmo you money then come over and do the laundry of a perfectly good stranger? This has Craig’s List Killer written all over this. Again people, necessities.

Queen Slime Ball

At first, I read this young woman’s most recent request for “help” and thought ‘con artist’. I scrolled down a bit and found her asking for more money. Scrolled again and there was the same one. Never asking for resources but straight up money. I clicked on her profile and the amount of times she asked for money was astounding. The rule was only one request a week so she would wait about a week and ask for more money.

I think around this time she realized, ‘maybe if I offer to work, I might get more help?’ Who knows.

And the most ridiculous one of them all is this next one. Again, this is a group to get people necessities, not a free for all. I just can’t wrap my head around this. What sort of mentality do you have to have to post the below when the previous post was a picture of someone’s eviction notice?

To add insult to injury, when she isn’t getting any bites, she begins a countdown. Like a liquidation sale that we have to go to or we’re totally going to miss out:

This is the last one. Can you believe this woman? I just can’t feel sorry for this chick when she asks for money for a hotel room because she was kicked out. Or asking for $50 to buy a kid a gift? There are so many red flags.

People are financially hurting right now. For these ass holes to take advantage of a page that is genuinely trying to help people just….well…there aren’t words. I just hope that the people that are able to assist are exercising extreme caution when selecting who to help, especially when it comes to giving money. For the con artists, I really think it will come back to bite them. Even if it’s good ole’ fashion karma. So what do you guys think? Have you run into anything like this?