WP members GF ill with cancer

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I have been wondering on and off since finding seanmw's Facebook page yesterday if we, the people who donated anyway, are going to let seanmw get away scot-free with this scam or not?

I know that I personally tend to learn fastest by making serious mistakes, and getting myself into fairly deep trouble/a mess, and rarely or very slowly from "good experiences" ( it takes a lot longer for them to sink in/register ).

Are we going to let seanmw, diagnosed AS as he is, ( he has a "Like Wrong Planet" button on his FB page visible to all his highschool buddies aswell as his family ), remember his scam on here as something easy and painless? ie. as something that bears repeating.

According to the rather sparse, ( and not exactly reliable ) details that we have about donations it is likely that seanmw collected at least $670, ( it may have been significantly more by the end ), and it seems almost certain now that it was under false pretences.

We can feel fairly cool, detached, etc about it, consider it a lesson well learned and therefore almost positive, ( if we didn't send more money than we could really afford anyway ), but perhaps we could do something to make sure that seanmw is less likely to try this on at another site, ( AS or otherwise ).

Seanmw's Facebook page appears to be "legit"; the people on it "real", ... and on his Friend's List are seanmw's mother, two sisters, his maternal grandmother, his grandpa ( probably ), and perhaps a brother, plus a great many people from his highschool/college.

It is possible that none of them know that he has been carrying out this scam, and very likely that he would prefer that they never found out.

And there are at least 4 WP members in among his FB friends too; TeaEarlGreyHot, Superboyian, MoniqueIJ, and TimTex ... ... ... maybe we could already pm one or all of them to explain the situation? I don't know any of them myself, have not been involved in discussion with any of them, as far as I can remember ... perhaps someone else on this thread has? ... Who out of them might be up to/for taking some sort of action?

I was thinking that we could pm seanmw here on WP and ask him to send what money he has not yet spent back to its donors, because he has not only not gone to see the hypothetical girlfriend, but it seems that he never intended to, and that the whole story was just that, a story, ... and explain that in order to protect people from this sort of thing we would otherwise broadcast his actions to various people on his FB friend's list.

If he says that he has already spent the money we could perhaps send messages to selected members of his friends list, informing them of his actions, thus maybe discouraging him from ever doing it again.

I believe that he actually doesn't see us as "real"; we're just usernames and avatars to him. And if we let him get away with this he will be able to carry on seeing people, online in particular, as unreal/simulations of some sort, with no feelings that actually matter to him, because he doesn't feel them.

I don't know ... do we have a responsibility here, to attempt to prevent it happening again, not as a punishment, but to protect others in the future?

What do others think?
.

im already donating to a couple of my friends so i cant give but hopefully they get better and whatever help they need

maybe a Seanmw scamed us group on facebook with links to this thread, and send
some invites out to people on his friends listI am sure is parents would be proud

You will never see that money again but perhaps the shame of having done this will keep him from doing this again on some other web site. Perhaps his peers and family will talk some sense into him letting him know how evil his actions were. I would give it one more week before spilling the beans giving him a chance to give his side before someone tells on him to family and friends.

erm, he can still read these comments can't he? won't he be able to see the nefarious plans? we can't tell his last login right?

I donated $20 a long time ago. Sean received the money order I sent him almost two months ago. Believe or not....I don't even care if I was scammed or not. It's a loss of $20 and I won't even notice it. It's not like i'm very altruistic in the first place. For one thing....I can't afford to be. All I can say is that if I was scammed, it would be the first time and it will be the last time because i'm never donating money again unless i'm CERTAIN it's going to a legitimate cause. I was somewhat skeptical of his story in the first place, but for whatever reason, I chose to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I find it very interesting I get accused of trolling in the Report to Mods thread by a new member mrluckybob.
for a suggestion I made here. This person really interests me.

I saw this comment as a attack on a member. I hope I am not out of line with reporting.

Friskeygirl Wrote

Quote:

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 6:07 am Post subject:
maybe a Seanmw scamed us group on facebook with links to this thread, and send
some invites out to people on his friends listI am sure is parents would be proud

direct link

[quote="mrluckybob"][/quote]

shoo

HILARIOUS!

A brand new member, doesn't know anyone or anything here, no idea of the dynamics of the forum, accusing someone who critisized seamw?

How naive are you anyway? You think you can change your forum name and we won't know? First of all, they all know your REAL name. This will all come back to you, in REAL life. What then? What if someone here calls the Bremerton Police? (360) 473-5220 and reports theft and fraud?

I still don't think this was a scam on his part. He is far too immature and naive to come up with this. The money just fell into his lap, and he spent it after he found out the "girl" has been yanking his chain the whole time. The only other possibility is that he made up the girl in his mind, for his own benefit, to ease his frustrated single life, and the story just snowballed. Pretend-girlfriend he could brag about on WP? I hope that's not the case, for his sake.