Online Scam On Plurk

Something happened on plurk that rattled the community. It’s about somebody calling herself LillyAnn, who is supposedly suffering from lupus. One day her supposed 17 year old daughter Gabi posts using LillyAnn’s account saying LillyAnn has been taken to a hospital, can’t pay for dialysis, claims they need money to save her, sets up Chipin site, as well as gets “donations” through PayPal.

When I was first introduced to this plurk thread created by LillyAnn’s supposed daughter Gabi, I couldn’t believe what I was reading, which at the time consisted of a few hundred replies already, all of which in support of Gabi and LillyAnn, trying to help Gabi raise money and some even already sending them money through PayPal. I didn’t know how I should react, feeling like a bad person because, for me at least, the whole thing screamed scam and fraud, but at the same time I knew I was a little prejudiced. The prejudice I had was that from the very first time I looked at LillyAnn’s profile, I decided she was phony. The picture looked phony and her plurks read phony. I don’t know why, I took instant dislike for this person and never befriended her in spite of her name popping up on my other friends’ plurks. I know that some people would say it’s not right to judge people in this fashion without trying to get to know the person. But honestly? My gut feelings about people have seldom been wrong and with LillyAnn’s plurk profile, it was just too strong a feeling to ignore.

Now as horrified as I was to read all the innocent people trying to help, sending money, putting Chipin site widget on their sites, and so on, it was just too unbelievable for me that nobody bothered to check even a shred of evidence that this person was indeed sick and in need of help, I thought maybe they already know this person in real life or have known this person long enough. Being new to this kind of social media, and seeing all these people with established online presence who have been members of numerous social media sites,  a part of me said they must certainly know what they were doing. Until somebody started to point out the discrepancies in the story and asked for verifiable information.

Having been a member of several online message boards, a few of them being animal rescue/welfare forums, I have seen numerous pleas and sob stories and sad cases people post to get monetary help. If it’s a legitimate cry for help, the one who makes the plea usually is very forthcoming with verifiable information. Some people are new to asking for help and do not provide detailed information, but after others ask for proof, they are more than happy to provide any info that would get them the help they need. For instance, for a dog they just rescued whose leg needs to be amputated to save his life, people ask for the vet’s info, address and telephone number to verify the story, which is duly provided instantly unless one is trying to scam some money off others. In LillyAnn’s case, none was forthcoming even after people asked for it repeatedly.

When the plurk response count on this thread reached several hundred without any real answers, people had done all kinds of research to find out that LillyAnn’s extensive web presence itself was phony, most of her articles plagiarized, and the character “LillyAnn” also made up. When the response count climbed over a thousand, most people were convinced, presented with overwhelming evidences, that they had been taken for a ride by a fraud who elaborately built his/her web presence over the years mostly by plagiarism, and making online friends on numerous social media sites. However, something made me utterly discombobulated; there were still people insisting that they still support LillyAnn and they “will not judge”, “postpone judgment”, “choose to believe in goodness in people”, “choose to see the good”, and so forth, et cetera, et cetera!!!! And they are intelligent people, too. Of course there are some who hope against hope because they truly can’t take it, but in most part the way I took them is quite different; “will not admit I was wrong”, “I can’t be totally wrong”, “choose to not admit I was wrong”, “choose to ignore all the evidence provided just because I don’t like being wrong and won’t admit it.”

My friends and I can’t stop being amazed by people who still support Bush, not to mention the wars, the ones who would not concede that this country is in deep shit. We often wondered what kind of people are these people? How can they not see? What are their reasoning processes? Well, now we know. They just don’t want to admit it. They choose to look the other way because otherwise they just have to say “I was wrong”.

As for me? A natural born skeptic and cynic? I will continue to make decisions on who I want to be friends with or not mostly based on my gut feeling, thank you very much.