Help a Student Recover from a Scam

Hello, or Asalaamu alaykum! My name is Payton, and I am an Islamic revert living in Canada. If you recognize me, I make content on TikTok, and I like to go on livestream to hangout, or give dawah. I also like to give my experiences on being a revert in Canada.

I have been struggling to create this Champaign because I don’t know where to start when it comes to where everything went wrong. So many little things in the past four years have caused me to end up where I am. Here’s the best summary of my situation:

I was robbed. I fell victim to a scam I am not going into detail about, because I’m still so embarrassed and ashamed I fell for it in the first place. But all of my savings was stolen. When I say savings, I don’t actually mean savings, because I never had any savings in the first place. I lost my student loan money. This loan was my last resort to stay in school.

In Canada it is expensive to go to school. My degree is about ten thousand dollars a year. If you can’t afford to pay for it, you can apply for a loan. But there is a cap .If you are under 21 years of age, you are still considered a dependent of your parents. That means if you apply for a loan, their income and your income is taken into consideration. In Canada, if your parents make more than 100k a year, you are not eligible for a loan. My family falls in that category. The first year I was in school during Covid, I received a small loan, due to special circumstances. When I applied again a year later, they declined it. The government expected my parents to pay for my school. But this didn’t happen. I was left in a situation where I paid my own tuition or dropped out. Keep in mind I moved out when I was 17. I couldn’t move back home because I adopted two cats and my step mother is allergic. So I already had living expenses to deal with. That was the start of where everything went downhill for me.

In order to go to school the next year, I essentially took out loans from friends at the beginning of the semester to pay my tuition, and then paid my friends back while I worked full time throughout the term. This was really hard because I was working full time and trying to do full time studies. My grades were suffering really bad. I have ADHD which makes school hard for me. The lack of time, and increased stress was really detrimental to my studies. But I was in school and that’s all that mattered to me.

Then I got sick. during Covid, I developed close to 100 symptoms that effected me in every aspect of my life. Due to the unfortunate medical system in Canada, I still haven’t received an official diagnosis. I believe that I have POTS syndrome, paired with chronic fatigue. Right now, I am only official diagnosed with orthostatic hypotension. That means when I stand upright, my blood pressure drops. I’ve noticed my heart rate also spikes and I have palpitations, which is more of a POTS thing. With my physical health declining, I could no longer work. This was mostly due to my sleeping habits as I could sleep up to 20 hours at a time, and I would only feel normal when laying down.

Knowing I couldn’t work, and couldn’t get a loan to pay for school, I had to take some time off. I moved out of province to work and try to save my money, but this didn’t end up going as planned. The last four years have been some of the hardest times of my life.

Finally, turn 21, I’m no longer a legal dependant under my parents, and I can apply for a loan. I moved back to my home city and I did one more semester before I was approved for a loan. This loan was enough for my to pay my tuition, and pay my rent, as long as I moved somewhere cheaper and got a roommate. I received my loan at the beginning of October. I was scammed and had what I put away taken from me on the 15th of October, one day after my birthday. That money was supposed to pay for my housing.

I moved out of my apartment at the end of October because I couldn’t afford another months rent, and I thought the cheaper apartment I was renting would be ready by mid November. So being temporarily homeless, I put my cats in my fathers workshop and have been sleeping on his couch. Around this time, my cat also got sick, resulting in a $500 vet bill. Lastly, I had planned to purchase a new tablet for work and school, so I could work more online, and take better notes in school. I wasn’t very upset I wouldn’t be able to do this, but then my laptop broke. Now I have to go the rest of the semester attempting to finish my final projects on a half functioning computer.

I was stupid for falling for this scam. But it has completely changed the course of my life. I am desperate and I don’t want to drop out of school. I can’t work, I can’t afford to study, and I’m homeless. While I lost $3417, I only need half back to go to school. If I can at least go to school, I might be able to make a plan for myself once again. The biggest problem is that I’m going to have to pay this loan back in full no matter what.

I feel so lost and hopeless. But many people have encouraged me to reach out and see if anyone can help. So that’s what I’m doing. Please feel free to send me a message and ask any questions. Thank you to anyone who can help.