My friend Kay needs your help

I am writing to ask for financial assistance for my friend, Kay, who was a victim of a major fraud. But first, I would like to introduce you to this amazing woman. I met Kay about 14 years ago through my faith community at Northridge United Methodist Church. She was a high school teacher and coach for nearly 30 years. During some of that time, she served as the Health Department chair and as a coordinator of girls sports. She taught health education, including giving information to students and faculty on rape treatment. She is a lifelong member of the Methodist Church, active in the choir and an advocate for the inclusion of female and gay clergy in the church. Additionally, she was the member of a small chamber chorale sharing the ministry of music and Labyrinth meditation services. She has also advocated for social justice issues including ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and the environment. She is active in a women’s education organization (PEO) that gives scholarship money to girls and women to further their educations. Kay and I personally connected on our love for writing poetry. In fact, she has self-published several volumes of poetry and continues to write. She has been incredibly supportive of me and my family during my own challenges living with my MS.

Now that you know a little about Kay, I will tell you why I am starting this campaign for her. During the entire year of 2023, she was the victim of a sophisticated and complex scam. It started with some fraudulent charges on her Costco account. She called what she thought was a legitimate number to report the bad charges. She ended up speaking with someone whom she thought was with the FTC indicating that her account had been linked to a money laundering crime. It seems that the fraudsters had managed to divert her call to Costco. In the process of her trying to protect her money, she ended up losing all of her savings to these con artists… Approximately $300,000. As you read my introduction of Kay, you can see that she is an intelligent woman. This guy worked on her for over a year before he was able to complete his con. As is common with skilled fraudsters, he played everything in a very believable way. While she is working with law-enforcement to try to catch these criminals and retrieve her money, the chances of that happening are very low.

While I am focused on helping my friend, her primary focus for this campaign has been to make sure that no one else gets taken advantage of the way she has been. She hopes that by sharing her story, that other people will be able to recognize this type of fraud and that they will protect themselves from it.

Sadly, this was her entire savings. She is almost 80 years old and if she has any health or other emergencies, she will have a difficult time meeting them financially.

Please consider donating some money to help her start to rebuild her savings. None of us would want to be without a safety net at 80. Kay is one of the kindest and most caring people I know. Please consider helping her as she has helped so many others.

Sincerely, Christine Coons