Stories of obsessive fans are as old as Hollywood, but the one that followed escalated financially and personally. A woman from Kentucky has revealed that she was taken in by a Stranger Things scammer. The man had posed online as the star of the series, started a relationship with her and cheated her of a large sum of money and a husband.
The scammer posed as Netflix star Dacre Montgomery
Catfishing is the name given to the scam in which scammers create a false identity online and dupe their victims. Such cases are presented in the YouTube series Catfished. One involves Kentucky native McKayla, who has shared her version of the story with the world.
She met a man in an online forum, posing as Dacre Montgomery. The Australian actor was a cast member of the Netflix series Stranger Things from season 2 and lent his face to the mustachioed Billy Hargrove.
Netflix
Dacre Montgomery
By her own admission, McKayla was initially skeptical that she was really in touch with the star, however he told her things she thought only Montgomery could know. That’s how he knew Billy would appear in a Season 4 episode before it was released.
Wife lost $10,000 (and a ‘toxic’ husband)
McKayla was at this point in an unhappy marriage to a “toxic” partner, a fate the fake Montgomery could empathize with. Since his partner supposedly controlled his fortune, McKayla helped him out with gift cards, bitcoin transfers, and checks for a year. She lost a total of $10,000 to the impostor. Also, she got divorced.
The single mother explains her decisions like this:
If you’re someone like me, you have Fear of being abandoned, you are very keen to please everyone and you are very dependent on other people. These scammers just walk in and feed on it.
You can watch the Catfished episode (via EW) where McKayla tells her story here:
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When will Stranger Things continue?
Stranger Things season 4 is streaming in full on Netflix. Season 5 will be the last, but a start date has not been set as production has not yet started due to the scriptwriters and actors going on strike in Hollywood.