Daniel's Scam Recovery Fund

This has been without a doubt one of the toughest years of my life. With COVID, moving across the country, and job hunting in a brand new state with no connections, nothing has been easy but it has been manageable. However, the current situation I am in is not manageable. I was scammed by people posing as hiring managers for Terna, a power company branching into renewables. I received the job information in my email, which wasn't anything out of the ordinary as I get multiple of those a day since I've been job searching so aggressively. I followed the email instructions to get in touch with the Head of HR, Veronica, communicated with her over Telegram, and did my interview. I did some diligence and was able to find Veronica on LinkedIn, which made me feel that this was legitimate. A day or two later I was informed that I was being offered a position by them; the position had normal weekday hours, good pay, and the freedom to work from home. I was elated. I was sent standard onboarding forms like the job offer letter, W4, and I-9, which I scrutinized, filled out, and returned. These were real company forms, with the company logos emblazoned on them and even with a signature from Terna's CEO. I was told I would be receiving a check in the mail which I was to use to purchase my work equipment from company vendors. When I got the check, I deposited it and then paid the vendors, whose information was provided by Veronica. I had to use my own money to finish paying the vendors as I was told that the company laptop I would normally get was out of stock and would have to get a different one. Looking back, I can see the red flags clearly now, but in my position of being jobless and finally receiving a stellar opportunity, I was blind to what was happening. It wasn't until this past Wednesday when Veronica stopped responding and totally disappeared that I knew what was going on. I got an email from my bank saying I was overdrawn by about $5000. I was in total shock, stunned with disbelief. The check I had deposited 5 days prior had just bounced that morning, and all of the money in my bank account was gone.

They took the remaining $300 that I had to my name, along with over-drafting my account another $5,000. I now have literally zero dollars (technically negative $5,000). They have also stolen my identity and tax information, through the tax forms I filled out under false pretenses. I have reported them to the FBI cyber crimes unit, filed a police report, flagged my social security number, contacted the IRS, and spoken with Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo will not help me since, in their eyes, I authorized all of this. I will not be receiving any help financially unless these scumbags are caught, which is not likely to happen as they are probably in another country. The reason this even happened is because of a new initiative Wells Fargo has put in place to help people with COVID. This new initiative allows money deposited from a check to show up immediately, in order to help those struggling from COVID, who need this money to be accessible immediately. This is the reason a bad check was able to hit my account (I thought the check was good since $5,000 was shown in my account) before being reviewed. This is why it bounced 5 days later, over-drafting my account. These scammers are clearly aware of this and preying on victims, especially during COVID when people are desperate for a good job.

This has placed an immense amount of stress on Kelsey and me, because she is living on student loans for Physical Therapy school, and also has no source of income. This is forcing her to cover rent, groceries, and our bills for the next few months from a very finite monthly allowance from her loans through school. With my savings totally gone and my identity stolen, I'm turning to my friends for help. My family and Kelsey's family is helping out as much as they possibly can, but with my sister just out of grad school and my dad currently working two jobs because of COVID greatly affecting his business, I needed to reach out to more people. I know this year has been so tough on pretty much all of us, but whatever you can afford to donate please know that I truly appreciate it. If you have questions or would just like to talk, please don't hesitate to reach out. 
I am truly so sorry to have to ask this of my friends- asking this is making me feel even worse about the situation. However, Kelsey and I don't know what to do and are exhausting all efforts. I love you all and I am trying my hardest to keep my head up- I just can't believe this has happened to me, especially because, as some of you may know, everything I owned was stolen from my storage unit last summer. This situation is already playing out like the storage unit because no one was able to help me/reimburse me when all my belongings were robbed. I have really been having the worst luck this past year. I have learned my lesson, and I promise to somehow educate as many people as I can on all of this. Maybe my efforts in bringing this to the attention of others will help prevent these disgusting people from taking advantage of anyone else since this is becoming increasingly more common in the digital/COVID era.

Hoping you all are faring better than me! 
Cheers to 2021 not coming soon enough,

Daniel