BlogHer - scams - Comments

Thank you for an important post

Lorri Steer — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:00:04 -0500

I have linked to your article on my blog. I think this is important information that every blogger on line should know.

I have posted a few additional steps for Christian women on line who seem especially at risk for falling for scams that use "prayer requests" and "miracles" as a cover.

Thanks again for your timely and well spoken words.

You can see my blog at http://www.lorriscancerupdates.blogspot.com/

I grew up with this behavior

ShoreBookworm — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:11:02 -0500

And a 75 my mother still exhibits it. The constant exaggeration of her own totally subjective symptoms. The drama surrounding any of our occasional illnesses as children. But only in some cases. Most of the time it had to be about her.

So I take every heart-rendering story I read online with a grain of salt. I don't assume it to be lies, but I do a little checking. I want to think I have found a balance of healthy skepticism and that I can have normal empathy for the plight of others, but it is a challenge.

Any well I had for my mother has long since run dry. Her newest exploits? She has gleefully embraced a careless, lazy and incorrect diagnosis of dementia, mentioned by a physician at the end of his rope during her last hospitalization. She is now doing what she believes a demented patient should be doing, including going out in the middle of the night and coughing outside my father's bedroom window until he wakes up and 'finds' her.

My father is her partner in this crazy dance, 76 and himself seriously ill. He brought her in, warmed her up, made her tea, made a fuss and then lugged himself to Home Depot to buy locks to lock her in. The calls to family members to report the newest drama would begin in the morning. Neither of them did the most appropriate thing, which was to call her physician. Because that would suck them right back to the hard questions of reality.

I would like to think that if the Internet had been a few generations sooner, my mother would have found some wonderful positive outlet for what ever has driven her through her sad life of longing.

But it is much more likely she would have been one of these tragic women, making up stories and bouncing from emotional victim to emotional victim.

Emotional Seduction

Barbara Rice DeShong PhD — Sun, 10 May 2009 22:00:11 -0500

I love this post. The issue of meeting unhealthy needs for attention by making up illnesses is a fascinating phenomena and not new. I loved the Night Listener (I saw the movie) and I liked that it ended showing the "mother" scamming a new community. I thought that showed how the "audience" means nothing personal to the user. The audience is just a drug dispensor and when the attention is withdrawn, the seeker finds a new dealer.

Barbara Rice DeShong, Ph.D.

MysteryShrink.com

sad but true

conversemomma — Sat, 09 May 2009 19:41:33 -0500

I met a woman like this when I was trying to adopt. She claimed to be a pregnant women. She saw my website on an adoption board. She started writing me, saying she wanted to place. But, she refused to call the lawyer. Instead, there were a series and stories about trauma. At first, I was so drawn in. I wanted to help her. Turns out she was talking to lots of hopeful couples and social workers, and agencies. She never asked for anything other than sympathy. But, she wasn't even pregnant. She a lonely girl.

kelly

http://www.ordinaryartblog.com

Fascinating discussion

Maria Niles — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:20:36 -0500

This is a really interesting subject and a great post, Melissa. I was (along with many others) taken for an emotional ride by an impostor on the internet. I didn't know there was a name for the behavior but having witnessed "real life" versions of Munchausen's, the name is apt.

I never had an inkling of what was going on until the impostors admitted their fraud. The experience though shocking didn't make me less trusting or more cynical, certainly not the way experiences with people in my life, very close to me have. I wonder if there is some distance created by the internet combined with a need to protect ourselves emotionally that leads us to get sucked in by such con artists.

BlogHer Contributing Editor
PopConsumer
Beyond Help

Let's keep each other informed

ramyana — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:04:07 -0600

Let's keep each other informed by carefully analizing these so called "schemes" and save others from getting victimized.

Hope it helps

Virginia DeBolt — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:38:41 -0600

keep your computer and your scam radar working in top condition.

http://www.webteacher.ws/
http://first50.wordpress.com/

Thanks for the info.

Catherine Morgan — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:41:20 -0600

Hi Virginia. Thanks for the important info. :)

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
also at CatherineBlogs.com and The Political Voices of Women