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16th August 2023
09:30am BST
A woman has revealed online that she was the victim of a catfishing scam which left her single and thousands of pounds out of pocket.
American, McKala, was married when she struck up a conversation on an online forum only to realise the man she was talking to was none other than Stranger Things star, Dacre Montgomery (spoiler: it wasn't).
McKala had joined the forum to express her creative side, claiming that her husband had never supported her biggest hobby.
She shared a post to the forum saying that she was exciting to connect with other filmmakers and was on the lookout for someone to collaborate with.
In response to the post, McKala received a number of messages, one of which was from a man who claimed to be Montgomery, who famously played Billy in the huge Netflix hit Stranger Things, which McKala is admittedly 'obsessed with'.
McKala claims she was suspicious at first but that the two "really hit it off".
The man who was pretending to be Montgomery told McKala that he was also in a relationship but that his girlfriend was controlling of him meaning it was very different for him to meet McKala in person.
When McKala decided to look at real Montgomery's social media channels, she found very little about this girlfriend, which convinced McKala they were in a loveless relationship.
After talking for a few months, 'Montgomery' told McKala it was either him or her husband.
She said: "He gave me an ultimatum, he said it's either your husband, or it's me. I said 'look, there's no competition. You treat me better'." Amazingly, she then told her husband it was over and that he had to leave.
She said: "Within two months, he was gone."
However, this was only the start of 'Montgomery's' requests as soon after this he began asking for financial support.
'Montgomery' began claiming that his girlfriend was controlling his bank accounts and that he had no access to money and so McKala said she'd help him out and began sending him gift cards worth hundreds of dollars at a time. Overall she sent 'Montgomery' around $10,000 (£7,800) worth of gift cards.
McKala shared her story on the Catfished YouTube channel and asked the experts to do some digging into her case.
They determined that 'Montgomery' was actually a romance scammer (duh), telling McKala: "Due to the fact that this guy sent you so many things that are from so many different places all over the internet, we've come to the conclusion that you're speaking to what's known as a romance scammer.
"He's done research on you, and he's basically morphing himself into this person that you want him to be, and also attaching Dacre Montgomery's photos to them."
Though she was upset to learn the truth, McKala reasoned that 'love makes you do crazy, stupid, irrational things'.
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