⏰ Episode 11 - The Wake up call - The day my fantasy died 📲

This episode is deeply personal. It’s about betrayal, financial trauma, and the painful moment when denial breaks — when the fantasy shatters and harsh truth takes hold.

Despite growing doubts, desperation pushed me forward. As suspicion grew, so did the distance between us. Love messages faded, replaced by transactions and demands.

Then came the moment that changed everything: an unexpected call from an unexpected source — confirmation of what I’d been fearing. I was caught in a scam. I share the gut-wrenching phone call, the confession to my family, and how I faced the reality of losing over $800K.

This episode exposes the emotional and financial devastation scams cause — and the courage it takes to face the truth and start healing.

Trigger warning: Financial loss, emotional trauma, family struggles.

If you’re struggling with something similar, you are not alone. 

Transcript

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Episode 11, the wake up call the day My Fantasy died. Before you hear this, I want you to know that this episode is deeply personal. It deals with betrayal, financial trauma, and family reckoning. I'm sharing it because silence protects the scammer, but telling the truth even when it hurts. Is how we begin to take our power back. It's October, and Pedro knew I was hurting for cash. He came to me with another plan he claimed to have another opportunity for us to make money. He said he'd been offered a position with a crypto company. They'd pay us 5% commission for helping move client funds into their investment platform. All I had to do was set up a business as well as a separate personal and business bank account and coordinate with the company's supposed CFOA, Mr. James K. Henderson of the crypto company, Fundation Finance. Pedro would take over once he got back to the us, but in the meantime, would I please step in to help? Even from the start, something felt off. James insisted on communicating through Telegram, not company email. Was that normal? Now I wondered. I brushed it off. After all I was desperate. Sounded simply enough and I was hurting for money. I thought this might be a good option until he got back. The amount of information this CFO shared with me in order to introduce himself and persuade me. He was nothing but upstanding and trustworthy was really quite amazing. He provided a very detailed letter with all his education and attachments that included three separate types of certificates regarding his knowledge and prowess of anything, crypto plus his passport, which I'm sure was fake, and a bank finance letter to guarantee funding to his company. This letter, I'm going to read it to you, and again, I'm going to read it exactly as it was written, so make sure you listen to the grammar. We, the undersigned, and my American brain doesn't know how to say this word, so I'll just spell it. It's S-B-E-R-B-A-N-K. Is that Burbank? Uh, Burbank. I don't know. Anyway, hereby open our irrevocable, transferable, divisible and confirmed bank guarantee to the order of Fundation finance for the amount of dollars 750 million as a security measure to clients who wants to make investment with the firm. We engage with you the demand draft under and in compliance with the term of the letter of guarantee shall by duly honored on the date of presentation. To us, this letter of guarantee is subject to the Uniform, customs and Practice Commerce. WFB What? What is that letter even saying? I have no idea. The letter only had one signature, even though the first word in the letter was we, and supposedly signed by bank, CEO, Herman Gr. Great attention to detail guys, but hey, that name sounds familiar to me. I thought so. I Googled it. I had heard of him. He's a Russian oligarch who actually is the CEO of that Russian bank. Even if this was credible, would you want anything to do with Russian money, especially associated with Herman g Graff? Why is this crypto company funded with Russian money? If you want to know more about G Graff, you can just Google him, but he is a close friend of Putin and received the citation of Certificate of Honor from the Russian president. What could go wrong? Right? I did sign up with a company online to start a business, which took some time, but was really dragging my feet on this as the Russian aggression had turned into war against Ukraine just the year before, and I didn't wanna be associated with Russia money in any way. Then in early December, I learned of one last emergency. Pedro said he was going through, there had been an explosion in his area and two of his workers had been killed. I was with my friends having Christmas brunch at one of their homes. When his came through, it was unbelievable, almost literally. How could so many emergencies, bad luck and disasters follow one person? He was only supposed to be gone one to two months and it was one thing after another. It's now eight months later and apparent that he was not going to be able to be home for Christmas. I actually Googled explosion on ad knock oil rig, as I figured it might be something newsworthy over there. Nothing recent showed up, no explosions, no deaths. As I'm telling my friends what was happening, I could tell a couple of them were having trouble believing this. Truthfully, I was as well, even though I was still in active denial, I wasn't just defending him. I was defending the story I needed to believe because if it wasn't true, then what did that say about me? He went days after this without contacting me. Finally saying that he had been detained or put in a type of holding cell because he was supervising this area. When the explosion happened, I was still trying to believe, but seeing our relationship change, there seemed to be much less time communicating since the money ran out and the messages of love almost completely stopped. They seemed to only come at strategic times, which were convenient for him. The relationship had become more transactional, more problems, more delays. I was becoming more suspicious. He was lamenting one day that his son was so angry with him for staying away for so long and wasn't speaking to him. Since I was going to be his stepmother, I thought it might be a goodwill gesture to send him a Christmas present and introduce myself. At first, Pedro said you can get him anything you'd like. Aiden was 15 and I didn't know what he was interested in, but assumed maybe an Xbox. I was trying to be very careful about any money I was spending. Right now, I only had one more credit with any purchasing power, but hoped he would be home soon enough to take care of all my debts I've incurred on his behalf. Before I could offer the Xbox, Pedro decided that I should buy an iPad. I thought, okay, I can do that, thinking it would run around$300 or so. Once he came up with this idea, he then said I should purchase a particular model. Of course, it was the most expensive one in the store, plus I had to purchase all the bells and whistles that go along with it. Oh, and by the way, could I add in the newest iPhone? While I was at it, Titanium was the preferred color. The man who claimed to love me had no problem emptying me out right before Christmas. Why would he ask me to spend all this money right now? I was still trying to purchase gifts for my own family, and this would definitely top me out on credit. I'm done, finished. This request for Aiden came to roughly$5,000. I once again had to suffer through speaking to Apple's fraud department before I could make the purchase. The mental and financial strain was becoming unbearable. I felt like I was being ripped apart. I got the address to send the package to, and although I seem to recall earlier, he said his son went to school in Dallas. But I was sending the package to Houston. It's now December 15th. It's mid-morning, and my phone rings from an unknown area code. I normally don't answer the phone if I'm not familiar with the number, but for some reason I answered it as soon as I heard the voice. On the other end, I froze. It was if time had stopped, why would this man ask for me by name? What could this unknown person want from me, I thought, and then the voice on the other line changed everything. He identified himself as a federal agent. He had a few questions about a recent event I'd been involved in. I can't tell you more, not because I wanna keep you in suspense, but because protecting his identity matters, he uttered the most painful information imaginable to me. He burst my fantasy bubble and gave me the reason I finally had to give up all my denials. I'd been so carefully cultivating until now. I remember the long pauses at times when I was just trying to comprehend everything that he was trying to say. I sat there stunned, shaking the room around me, seemed to be spinning as the truth finally settled in before we finished this conversation, he advised me to verify his identity. He wanted me to Google the federal agency he worked at, find the phone number on my own and call them. I asked them to verify his name and employment with them. I did and they confirmed, I don't think I would've thought to do this, but was very appreciative that he gave me this advice. This made what he told me. More believable. Unfortunately, I'm now passing along this same advice. Always verify. The news woke me up to the devastation that my worst fears had been realized robbed of everything I had worked for. I was already behind on the payments for the increased home equity loan. The more I thought about this turn of events, the more depressed I became. What was I going to do? Where could I turn? I knew that the agent knew of one incident, but I had so much more to tell. It took a couple of days for the realization to sink in, but then I called him back. We spoke at length and I told him everything. We made a plan, but part of that plan I needed to work on right now was telling my family. The one thing that I had tried so hard to avoid, it was the week before Christmas, I called my oldest brother my rock in every crisis. He agrees to meet me at Starbucks in the local target store. I was a bit concerned with this location because of the sensitivity of the subject matter, but I didn't wanna raise concern too early. You, the next few hours were among the lowest points in my life. I told him the basics of the scam. He didn't want the details. But then asked me how much I had given the scammer. At that point, I had calculated approximately$700,000. He nearly fell off his chair. We discussed options for a bit, and then he wanted me to talk to my sons and tell them what was going on. I didn't wanna say anything right before Christmas, but he insisted we get this over with and out in the open with my sons as quickly as possible. I've always tried to teach my children to be honest and live their lives with integrity. Now, I have to confess, I'm the total opposite of what I want them to be. I thought I'd be able to pay them back before they would need that money, but now I have to let them know that that's gone and I won't be able to repay them. No one could ever say anything bad enough about me that came close to how I felt about myself in this moment. I've never contemplated suicide, but I came close to understanding how someone could have those feelings of hopelessness. But how could I leave my sons in this gigantic mess? This is the last thing. A parent wants to leave their children with massive debt. This not only ruined my life, but I'm ruining their future. After the confession session was over, my brother told me I should tell one of my sisters. I told him he should call her and let her know. Because I was so emotionally distraught and exhausted from all this, I just couldn't bring myself to go through it One more time. We decided that we would keep this revelation from the rest of the family. For now, no need to have everyone alarmed. In fact, the rest of my siblings are finding out about my story the same time you are. I texted them my podcast and YouTube links and told them to watch or listen if they wanted. My only hope is that they will forgive me. Okay. Back to the story. When the federal agent called me, I was still in communication with Pedro. There were some things going on that I could perhaps help them with, and of course I was only too happy to comply. I. The bad news was that I had to keep communication with him going a while longer. I was grieving at the same time I was seething and I wanted to call him every name in the book, but I knew that probably wouldn't phase him. I'm sure he's heard all that before and would just be laughing all the way to the bank. I won't give him that satisfaction. I remember the last time I heard from Pedro was early February. My phone rang early one morning before I had gotten outta bed. I didn't answer. It rang twice more in quick succession and shortly thereafter I received a text asking me why I didn't pick up and what was really going on. I asked the agent would he have anything to do with that. He just said that if he told me he'd have to kill me. Nah, I'm just messing with you. But knowing that Pedro must have really been worried about something, gave me just the slightest bit of satisfaction, there are a couple of things the agent opened my eyes to that horrified me, and I want you to know and hear me clearly. Remember when I sent that wire transfer from Pedro's bank account to the other accounts? Well, it could have been an account hijacked by this whole scam operation, and I could have unwittingly helped launder around$1.5 million for them if I transfer the money for them. This keeps their identity safe, right? I don't think this was the case Even though I have heard of this happening to others. The bank web address that I received is no longer reachable, which tells me everything about it was fake. Just another manipulation tactic. Another thing that new business pager was trying to get me to help him with, the agent told me I would basically be helping them steal money from clients and again, launder it for them through accounts I would set up through different banks. The one scam I was able to veer away from. I am so grateful that someone finally stopped me from my ever increasing involvement with these people. He helped me see what was really going on. This exercise of writing while trying to shed my shame and humiliation has been cathartic, and I'm starting to feel like I can finally forgive myself. I can never go back to who I was before this experience, but I've also become a lot smarter and more aware of things that are happening around me every day and just hoping I can help warn others of these shark filled waters. I hope my scars will heal and hope to be able to somehow dig myself out of this financial mess. I was really looking forward to May of 2025. This was the time that I would be completely out of debt. I felt pretty good about that. Not so bad for a single mom on a single income. My friends are still my friends. My family is still my family, but I'm sure they look at me differently now like I'm damaged. Maybe I am. I just hope they don't desert me. I hope I can get back to my fun-loving, annoying self. Next time on Romance Scam Rebellion. Just when you think it's safe to go back into the water, let's just call the next episode my rebound mistake. Until then, stay safe and remember, self-compassion isn't weakness. It's resistance.