I Lost $45,000 In A Romance Scam

[Music] brought to you by the every dooll app start budgeting for free today I was involved in a romance scem probably about four or five months ago and it ended up getting me into like $45,000 worth of debt and oh no Sky what happened what do you mean was the person fake like it was like an internet thing yeah yeah it was an internet thing so um I don't know it was like over the course of several months like nearly a year um that I was catfish into believing this person was real and it was weird because like he would do facetimes with me and it seemed like the same person every time and it was like it didn't seem fake to me you know and to me it was like we were setting up a life together and so I ended up spending most of my money to this guy and it's weird how it can happen to like anyone because I'm pretty I'm pretty young and I didn't recognize this as being a normal scam so I don't want to yeah I don't want to bring up all this pain but I do think you just said something that I agree with that this can happen to a lot of people and without going into the entire detail of it what were you being asked to send money to him for I'm just curious so that people his bills like what was he what was he asking money for yeah um so it was more so like just to set up uh life together it wasn't really anything particular literally like it didn't seem like anything crazy it was like oh well we should get a house and we should get like things going and so you sent him money for a down payment on a home it it wasn't necessarily that but it was just like a CO a collection of like things it wasn't just one specific I can't I don't want to say like one specific thing it was like a whole bunch of like little things that combined to be a lot of money you know okay all right well man I'm so sorry so sorry that happened to you yeah so how can we help today so I guess my question is is how do I get in touch with the right people to uh fight this because it seems like I take it to uh the police station and I take it to people who are supposed to know how to handle these situations and supposed to know how to help but it doesn't seem like anybody is like well sorry this happened sucks to be you I guess yeah well there's a reason why you're getting those answers so you went to all those authorities and that was pretty much the answer yeah well that and he stole my identity too like he's been hacking into my bank accounts and stuff with it and opening like random cards I have a person down in Georgia who's using it for unemployment right now yeah and they told me so okay well I mean that end we can help with the identity that the money that you you've paid some random person it's gone yeah I mean it is Guy there's not like a legal battle to be fought there was not a contract in place there was nothing that's going to hold ground in court it's just you made a You made a mistake a $45,000 mistake and I and I'm so sorry for that um how old are you Sky I'm 21 okay okay I'm so sorry I'm so sorry he totally yep picked you out knew what he was doing and yeah you got scammed um did you learn anything from this guy I think I learned a lot from it actually good yeah okay so on the on the other end though your identity being stolen that's now that's a that's a separate yeah there's something there that you can do so I would go in and freeze pull all your credit rep pull your credit reports you can do this for free at all the three different credit bureaus so you can just go online Experian TransUnion you know any of those pull your credit port and see a a detailed list of your credit okay um and then you can freeze your credits so no one else can be taking money out of your name now the unemployment Social Security that gets into the government side of your identity right so there's a there's a whole IRS situation there that you would have to untangle as well SK do you have family that like your parents and stuff where's um where are they so I'm actually living with my parents right now okay what are they saying about all this is is your mom and dad helping at all detangle this or do they do they know about it they do know about it and like my mom she just like last week um helped me get LIF lock on all of my accounts and stuff like that but still it still sucks because uh you can't just you can't just change your social and I had him like after I got LifeLock he called my bank using like a like a recording of my voice that you you know how like AI can go in and like my gosh yeah so he did that and then he called my bank and used my social and got another like $300 for my account okay wow well I would even switch Banks I mean I would do some some pretty oh drastic things where he can't where he can't find you in that way um and hey Scot and you may want to contact Xander um they have a great identity theft program they have insurance which you're probably going to buy after we get off this call but even them hopefully being able to direct you and untangle some of this as well from the identity theft side of it um but yeah I mean if I were you I would change I would change Banks completely freeze my credit yep um and yeah I mean and then from there yeah I mean I would call Xander and and get some direction on the things like the Social Security unemployment all of that um because that's the government side of this um but gosh I I yeah I'm so sorry yeah and it's just a good lesson for those of you know watching and listening that you know we always say you don't give money to people you're not married to even if you're dating even if you're engaged you don't combine finances at all you don't pay on each other's debt you don't do any of that until you're married and then I mean I think it I guess it just has to be said out loud not you until you meet someone in person yeah we're not gonna you can't believe you got to say it but don't send a nickel to a person that you've not met you just can't do that this is not even the person that's scamming her may not even be a man you don't even know like all of this AI stuff and all of this this is very very Sinister stuff here and it's getting it's getting worse well the fact that he used her voice recording this is i that's AI I mean like that is yeah that's not like USPS texted me this isn't your garden variety catfish no I thought yeah USPS I got a text like two months ago that they lost the package and right asked for all my information and I I can't believe it I I did it I because you trust the Postal Service it said have a nice day at the end of really did have did you don't know that we had a whole segment about this I wasn't on with you can you believe did you get scammed can you believe it nothing's happened so far poor Winston he must have had to eat a bottle of peps I had to ask him for his debit card like my debit card he went along with it no no my debit card stopped would not go through on this website that was sent to me by the quote unquote USPS and Winston was like babe that's a scam and I was like what I fell for it I'm got a text from your friendly you are and then you look at the email above and it's like 89423 gmail.com I mean it's stupid y'all I fell for it so I'm saying all to say smart people can fall for stupid stuff so watch out for the scams they're everywhere he's speechless I've never been speechless I'm going to have to take a commercial break to recover we'll be right back this is the Ramsey Show create your free every dooll budget today the simplest way to budget for your life