Help Me Recover From Being Scammed
Donation protected
Truth is stranger than fiction, as my circumstances show.
I, Edwin Lai (in the picture on the left), am a 4th year applied math major and scholarship student at UCLA, so I really can't afford all the unexpected costs that have popped up because of James Hunter, the convicted con-man in the picture on the right. That's why I'm turning to GoFundMe.
James Hunter is a 37 year old grifter who pretends to be a graduate student at UCLA, although there is no record of him in the directory. His scam is to find a person desperate for a subletter on Craigslist, move into a college apartment, stay for a month, then move his mother in and force everybody else to move away from the apartment by making it unlivable and threatening the other roommates with a knife. After that, he finds some unfortunate foreign family, gets them to pay first and last month's rent in cash, and runs off with their money.
This is exactly what happened to my roommates and me. My roommate's parents stopped paying his share of the rent for personal reasons, so he found Hunter on Craigslist. Hunter moved in soon after, and a month later, he moved his mother in and constantly verbally abused her. He also fed his girlfriend his mother's painkillers, possibly to try to get her addicted to pain pills. His story was not adding up, so I Googled him and found out that he was convicted of grand theft for running this same scam in October. My roommates and I wanted him out of the apartment, so we tried to evict him. His reaction was to tear up the paper and point a chef knife at us. At this point, we had no choice but to find a place to move to quickly. Because of this, I couldn't exactly shop around for low rents.
After this, I tried to file a restraining order against him, but the judge denied the restraining order and billed me a $435 filing fee. I showed the paperwork to two different attorneys and they were both shocked that it wasn't granted. I already can't afford to pay for two apartments, so this added expense is driving me to crowdfunding.
Because of these events, I've been stuck with about $2700 in bills. Please help me get out of this hole!
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As GoFundMe has requested that I post what I plan to use my donations for:
$435/.92=$473 Filing Fee
$1315 Rent for New Place (42 days)
$582 Loss of Security Deposit
$100 Moving Expenses and Other Transportation
$230 Other Incidentals, Time, and Expenses; Emotional Distress
The 5%+2.9%+$0.30 fee per donation has been priced in.
Any donations past the goal will go to other victims of Hunter's scams. I have been in touch with at least four others.
I, Edwin Lai (in the picture on the left), am a 4th year applied math major and scholarship student at UCLA, so I really can't afford all the unexpected costs that have popped up because of James Hunter, the convicted con-man in the picture on the right. That's why I'm turning to GoFundMe.
James Hunter is a 37 year old grifter who pretends to be a graduate student at UCLA, although there is no record of him in the directory. His scam is to find a person desperate for a subletter on Craigslist, move into a college apartment, stay for a month, then move his mother in and force everybody else to move away from the apartment by making it unlivable and threatening the other roommates with a knife. After that, he finds some unfortunate foreign family, gets them to pay first and last month's rent in cash, and runs off with their money.
This is exactly what happened to my roommates and me. My roommate's parents stopped paying his share of the rent for personal reasons, so he found Hunter on Craigslist. Hunter moved in soon after, and a month later, he moved his mother in and constantly verbally abused her. He also fed his girlfriend his mother's painkillers, possibly to try to get her addicted to pain pills. His story was not adding up, so I Googled him and found out that he was convicted of grand theft for running this same scam in October. My roommates and I wanted him out of the apartment, so we tried to evict him. His reaction was to tear up the paper and point a chef knife at us. At this point, we had no choice but to find a place to move to quickly. Because of this, I couldn't exactly shop around for low rents.
After this, I tried to file a restraining order against him, but the judge denied the restraining order and billed me a $435 filing fee. I showed the paperwork to two different attorneys and they were both shocked that it wasn't granted. I already can't afford to pay for two apartments, so this added expense is driving me to crowdfunding.
Because of these events, I've been stuck with about $2700 in bills. Please help me get out of this hole!
--------------
As GoFundMe has requested that I post what I plan to use my donations for:
$435/.92=$473 Filing Fee
$1315 Rent for New Place (42 days)
$582 Loss of Security Deposit
$100 Moving Expenses and Other Transportation
$230 Other Incidentals, Time, and Expenses; Emotional Distress
The 5%+2.9%+$0.30 fee per donation has been priced in.
Any donations past the goal will go to other victims of Hunter's scams. I have been in touch with at least four others.
Organizer
Edwin Lai
Organizer
Mountain View, CA
