I first wrote about an extraordinary internet scam way back in April of 2008 in which a woman was hoaxed into having an internet romance with a fictitious guy (actually a woman) who subsequently 'died'. The scam was perpetrated for the sheer excitement of it all and not driven by sex or money. Some of my commenters refused to believe it. I did -as Harlan Ellison, the well known author, validated what had happened.
Well now it appears that the scammer, a woman by the name of Janna St. James (who adopted up to 20 personalities to sustain her scams) is being sued by her victim, Paula Bonhomme.
Read all about it here
Hmmmm! There is a fella who talks to me nearly every day on the net. I wonder if he is really a woman? LOL
ReplyDeleteGrannymar,I bet he is. Like the bearded lady in freak shows! Be careful.
ReplyDeleteAnd a freak show is what it is. What a sad life some people live.
ReplyDeleteVery bizarre! I wonder how much of it became a spiral out of control, where she couldn't stop telling the lies?
ReplyDeleteIt is very sad that stories like this end up making you question so much :-(
If there's one thing the internet has done so well, it's illustrate the many and various facets of the human character - some good, some downright evil. It's hard to know whether to feel sorry for such people as James, or despise them.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what she actually got out of it? Was it the sheer perverse pleasure of fooling other people? Was she trying to prove how gullible people are? She was obviously incapable of putting herself in the other person's shoes.
ReplyDeletethere's just no end to the unanswerable question of why do people do these things and so much worse. Everything else has already been written by RJ Adams. I, too, think that people like St. James need our prayers and empathy but sometimes it is so hard in the face of all the inexorable harm and pain they cause.
ReplyDelete