#i'm very vulnerable to scams (i fell for laura deremas' for months)

[khizuo]

Important Notice — I Unknowingly Spread a Scam

Hi everyone,

You may have seen some of my donation posts for "Jenun", someone from the Gambia I knew on instagram who I referred to as my friend. I would like to make an apology, because it turns out that Jenun was scamming me this entire time and I spread their scam to tumblr as well.

Jenun messaged me on Instagram over a year ago asking me to help with their "fundraiser". At the time, I belonged to a mutual aid space on Instagram where cold messaging was considered the norm, and I did not think to investigate their claims. This was absolutely naive of me. To clarify one point: although I referred to them as my "friend" in some of my posts, we were not really friends and I mostly just used that term for convenience's sake. Our relationship mostly consisted of them frequently messaging me for money, and because I thought they truly needed funds, I would try to help them. It was honestly only after I started seeing scam-busting posts on tumblr that I learned the tools to investigate scammers and put together the fact that they were scamming me (and probably others as well).

To be clear, I was not aware until very recently that Jenun was scamming me and others. I believed in their story wholeheartedly and I helped fundraise for them because I thought they were telling me the truth. I also sent them a lot of my own funds, even when I was in dire need myself. I did not intentionally try to scam anyone on tumblr and I'm really very sorry that I didn't catch onto their scam until now. I do not condone scamming and I never would have shared their ask if I had known it was a scam.

I totally understand anyone who is upset with me for this. I will work on refunding everyone who donated to Jenun through me once I am in a secure enough financial position to do so. I just wanted to be open and aboveboard about the situation on tumblr: I was taken advantage of for months by a scammer and I caused harm by spreading the scam here. I will be making all posts I made for them unrebloggable and in the future I will no longer cross-share any donation posts from Instagram. Apologies to all.