Imagine taking up the cause of a young boy with cancer only to discover that the boy never existed. That’s the reality of hundreds of Facebook users after a recent scam concocted by a Florida restaraunt owner was brought to light.
As Melanie Eversley reports for USA Today, Cindy Choi, 28, created the profile of ‘Kevin San Roman’, a boy living in Spain with leukemia. She also created a profile for his younger brother, ‘Lucas’.
Choi is most likely suffering from a version of Munchausen Syndrome, which makes her motive the attention and sympathy garnered from her false personas.
Though many young girls were “online girlfriends” with the fake profiles, Choi reportedly never met up with any of them. It appears as if playing on the sympathies of others was Choi’s only real wrong doing.
This is certainly not an isolated case. There have been a number of similar stories exposed recently and one would imagine there are currently other scams that continue on Facebook. Hopefully, stories like these make users more wary of who they put their trust in.
