.            Last week on my Kaycee And The Forefront page via Webnode and AdFly, I blogged about four intimidation scams that have been operated by some of the biggest scum of the Earth, and how we can work together to prevent such vile shit from ever happening again. And as for this week's issue that I'm going to bring to the forefront, well it's another scam that's seldom heard but just as vile as the aforementioned four scams that I blogged about, with the scam being my uncle doesn't have his half of the rent money, so I need you to lend me money. So in other words, it's the "Scam That Cried Uncle". And unfortunately, I have been on the receiving end of that on three occasions and they all occurred in 2008. And the scam was executed by the same person, who I thought was my friend. But as fucked up as all of those situations were, they also gave me insight into the warning signs of this type of scam. And of course, I'll provide detailed accounts of each occurrence, as each of them will be numbered. Let's begin:

1. The first of these situations happened in July 2008 when I mentioned an undisclosed stashed away amount of money to this so-called friend, and I mentioned it to her in confidence. And that was a big mistake on my part, because she kept repeating that undisclosed number to me in subsequent phone conversations. And of course, that led to her texting me one day late in that month to tell me that her uncle gambled all of his money at the dog track and because of that, both of them and her aunt would be evicted, as the money that he gambled away was supposed to be rent money. Of course, this girl I thought was a good friend of mine, so I felt bad and offered to help. She said, "Oh, you don't have to, but it would be good if you could." And like a fool, I bought in and sent her $266. I also thought that it would have been a one-time thing. However, I was wrong.
2. The second situation happened in both September and October 2008. However, this time it was for a business idea of hers, which was starting her own clothing line. She said that she needed a $200 loan to get started, so she asked me for the money. I said I don't think I'll be able to help you. She said okay. However, she sent me a text message saying that she was upset with me for not being able to help and because she was my friend, I caved in and loaned her the $200. Then roughly about a month after I loaned her the money, I asked her how the clothing line idea was coming along. She answered, "Oh, I haven't been able to get it started because of my uncle. He's been stressing me out." I then answered, "Oh, that sucks." And I kept it at that. I then got the sense that my time as her friend would be coming to an end.
3. The third and final situation came in December 2008 when on my second of one of my many attempts to reinvent myself, I got a text from her on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving saying that her uncle got them behind on the rent again, and that she needed $250...again or else they would face eviction...again. I said, "No, I won't be able to help you this time." She then said please and would not take no for an answer. She even mentioned self-harming because of how dire the situation was. Fearing what she would do to herself, along with the fact that she was still my friend, I stupidly caved in and sent her $355 this time. And this third time, I had a very bad feeling about it. And unfortunately, my premonition came true, as that attempt of re-inventing myself fell by the wayside, by becoming very stressed. Plus, I also became depressed, sick, had a near sleepless night on the Thursday of that week, and nearly had a loss of appetite. And because of all that, it was right then and there that I decided to end my friendship with her, along with taking a hard stance against her asking me for money...again.

             After disappointing myself in what I did, along with telling one of my best friends known as The Lemur about all of that shit, I started to focus on two glaring takeaways about that situation, with the first one that she promised me to repay all of the money. And as for the second one, well every time that she talked to me during these so-called dire situations, her tone of voice was stark raving calm instead of hysterical. It then hit me that she was using a fake crisis to scam me out of money to the tune of $821. And each of those times, she cited her uncle one way or another.

            I then confronted her with a text message about how much she owed me from those times and told her how much she owed me. She then replied, "What?" as if she had no idea what the fuck I was talking about. She then accused me of harassing her and that she would text me back later, because her and aunt were going to the crisis center. I said, "Okay, TTYL." But instead of maintaining communication with her, I decided to stop talking to her altogether. Especially when I finally figured out how much of a con artist she was. And by the way, if me merely stating how much she owed me was harassment, then what the fuck is sending a heavy-handed text message to me about being upset with me that I said that I couldn't loan her the $200 for her supposed clothing line idea? Especially when she claimed to be a person of God. And because of that, she made it seem alright to send me that aforementioned heavy-handed text message.

         Fast forward to a little over two months later when at that time, I turned 25. And shortly after that had happened, things were slowly but surely getting back to normal for me, as I was taking a very low-key approach to reinventing myself. And just as that was starting to go on again, guess who text me about possibly being evicted again because of her uncle. That's right, that fucking scamming bitch. And this time, the money was well in the $300 this time. However, I said no. She said please, but I stood firm in saying no this time. She then replied, "Alright, fine. I'll get the money myself." I didn't reply to her after that and I never replied to her ever gain. And of course, I told Lemur about that fourth time and how I stood my ground. She replied, "Good!"

        No longer being held hostage by a fake ass friend, I felt liberated and guilt-free about the $821 that got stolen from me, so my mood was better six days after I had received that text message. And speaking of text messages, that fucking bitch sent a text saying, "Well, I got the money but I did something that I'm not proud of to get it, so fuck everybody who said that they couldn't help!" I laughed at the text message and told Lemur about it and replied, "Haha. What a bitch!"

       Of course, I learned most of this shit the hard way. However, I learned something else about that in a less painful, and that was one day the fact that I talked to a girl online sometime in 2010 and she used the same wording that that former friend used and that was, "My uncle doesn't have his part of the rent money and we're going to get evicted, so I need you to lend me money to help with that." I didn't reply back and ended the conversation. I then came to the realization that what I had experienced wasn't an isolated scenario, but just another copycat scam in a long line of them.

      When it comes to learning about fucked up situations such as this one, sometimes the only way to learn is the hard way. However, I wouldn't recommend learning the hard way at all if you can help it. And because of that, heed this entry as a lesson to avoid going through what I went through. And a good first step to avoiding that is don't share undisclosed sums of money to anyone looking for a quick few bucks. Do that and heed everything else in this entry, and you'll be doing your part in slaying the monster known as scamming.