WP members GF ill with cancer

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this is bullcrap
and seanmw is shady

:lol :lol :lol

On page 6 of this thread hale bopp said:

To which seanmw replied:

And updates have been getting thin on the ground and increasingly unrelated to the main issue.

I *am* beginning to wonder if Leekduck, among others, ( including my NT co-parenting partner ) may have been right all along. ...

My latest special interest is "story structure" and "story weaving", ( as per Dramatica Theory in particular ), and one of the things that is apparently very important when telling a story that people will want to believe/suspend incredulity for is that the Main Character or Protagonist should be described/presented in such a way that the reader/viewer can identify with them, and the most powerful way to do that is to make them flawed/weak/imperfect/fragile, whether that is being scared of plane flights, as John McClane is in "Die Hard", or something else ... and I'm thinking that if it turns out that all this was a scam it worked with me because I rapidly identified with seanmw's apparently transparent gullibility, and his absent-minded muddles over things, and so on. In fact the more of a mess he made of gathering solid, sensible, and consistent data, the more I believed him. :lol It's interesting.
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PS. Thinking some more about why I believed that seanmw was genuine, if not his gf;

I thought that he showed "poor judgement" ( in believing his gf's story ), ... ! :lol

If it turns out to have been a scam on his part then it would seem that the most effective way to get someone to believe in you is to pretend to a weakness which the other person has but does not admit to, is unaware of or blind to, as the conman does with the woman psychologist in Mamet's amazing film "House of Games". ...

I hate thinking that I have poor judgement, but I realised a while ago that I have repeatedly shown bad judgement in my life, and have begun to understand that on the whole I'm safest making no big decisions, ( or very few ), living a very careful, cautious life; I am so bad at weighing up the overall importance of individual factors.

It would be nice if it turned out that seanmw was genuine, and that I had not shown poor judgement ... but I am starting to think that it is a very good thing that this was such a small decision, that I only sent $25, not $100, or more, like some people here have done.

I wonder what other people identified with that made them "believe"/send donations? whether or not it turns out that seanmw is genuine, it could be really interesting, and useful, to explore/examine how this sort of thing works.
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ouinon - I don't really "believe" either way. But I do think the effort to profit ratio makes this a poor scam if it is one. Nobody's getting rich or going bankrupt here, and if you're right then everyone's ok so that's really a good thing.

He said his contact with us was going to be spotty at best for about a week. I still don't think this is a scam.

The only information that we have had about Adrienne's alleged cancer, treatment, recovery from surgery, and prognosis in the last 33 days, ie. nearly 5 weeks ... is in the posts below:


That Saturday morning would have been the 31 July.



Sean got back from the camping trip the 22/23 August



That's now over a week ago.
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Last edited by ouinon on 02 Sep 2010, 12:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think hes a scammer, but I think he should at least update for the people here.. he obviously has an internet connection if hes going on myspace.

Whatever's up, I hope he gets some quality time with the girl. That's why I donated my part. I don't expect much contact on here if the money is being put to use the way I intended it.

He hasn't gone to visit her yet.

i have disengaged from the topic.
whether or not it was a scam, it was not much money i lost in the scheme of my life.
it is like pressing my foot into the sand near the tide line of a beach, and hoping that my footprint will be filled with pearls, but seeing that obviously my footprint was washed away with the first waves of the rising tide of a new day.

the world takes what you have to give and dissolves it to an indiscernable mist of diluted inevitability.

i do not want my money back. if nothing becomes of my donation, then he can have some temporary fun and ask me no more for my help.
easy.

i will never cast my life's holdings to the winds of my belief. i am no poorer by this small investment into a failed prospect.

it took me only 2 hours to earn what i lost in this episode.

i am not finished with my belief that it is all real, but i am finished with my hope that it is.

I wonder why people don't see what's (probabiy) happening here: that social benefits and disability money are just not sufficient to have a decent life.

B9, Sean posted here saying he'd pmd you and (presumably) cleared up the misunderstanding about your missing money. Was that true? (not asking for the pm to be pasted, just did the excuse wash?).

Katharsistwo, nobody's denying that benefit isn't a lot of money, but some of the people donating to Sean's scam were on benefit too. Since his girlfriend is no longer at death's door (so his posts would have you believe), they are basically giving up their savings to give one member a free holiday.

Seriously, if this is a scam (and until we see any evidence, I'm guessing it is), I'd like to see some action taken; banning at least, unless all the money is returned to the people who donated.

womp womp lesson learned?

This thread is likely to degenerate into extremely antisocial bullying, if it has not already done so.

Money often brings out the worst in people - whatever money has changed hands was a gift, with no obligation whatsoever to the people who donated. Everyone can learn their own lesson from that.

okay mr. high and mighty. sorry but usually when people donate money, it is supposed to be used for the purpose that they donated it for. you're belittling the act that is fraud (doesn't matter how large or small the amount of money was).

Maybe! :lol

I've just been rereading the two threads seanmw posted in The Haven about Adrienne and about his financial position, and the posts on his myspace page which are still visible to the public/"non-friends" ( he logged in again there yesterday, the 2 September ).

According to one of his posts on myspace he graduated from one college in 2008, but according to a WP post he either had applied, unsuccessfully, or was applying, probably too late he said, for financial assistance for college for this year, ... which has just started.

According to a post of his on myspace and one on here he smokes, had apparently tried to stop but failed, and so presumably is still buying cigarettes ... on just $6 dollars a month ... which is what he says in another post on the longer of the two Haven threads he has left over after paying his third of the rent.

According to other posts on WP he was told back in late July that his family, ( his mom, one of his sisters, and himself ), who were apparently subletting part of a flat from a friend were having to move out after the landlord found out about it; his mother and one of his two sisters at the end of August, ( into a women's hostel seanmw said ), and himself on the 16 August.

Five months ago on myspace he said that he was planning on visiting Adrienne as soon as he could get the money together.

What I'm wondering is whether he deliberately set out to scam the money, his girlfriend maybe having been ill in some less serious, if temporarily alarming, way which gave them the idea, ... or whether she did tell him that she had cancer and he originally believed it, and only later, when communication with Adrienne began to dry up, ( from "everyday" according to a posts on myspace and WP earlier in the year, to barely once/twice a week and only text messages at that over the last 6 weeks, if his posts on here are anything to go by ), began to wonder if it were true or not, and in the existential gloom etc that this discovery induced, began to think that if people wanted to send him money then they could obviously afford it and it was up to him what he did with the money and really it was rather stupid of them to give money to strangers on the internet anyway.

The poems he has posted on one of his sites/pages sound desperately sincere, and some of the info, about his grandfather and the camping trip, for example, sounds very "real", though I'm now wondering where the "little brother" he allegedly went with is supposed to live.

... And still I'm thinking of possible explanations/justifications/reasons for his not posting on WP since Sunday, etc which would be legit ... that he is pissed off with the scepticism, or doesn't see why, having got the money, he should have to give an account of his life, what he is up to, etc, despite having agreed with hale bopp at the beginning that it would be "only fair" to keep people updated.

But he has logged on to his myspace page two days in a row, so he must have internet access and the time to bother with a myspace page, so his sudden extended absence from WP does look pretty fishy.

Who thinks that he is just pee'd off at the pressure to justify himself on here? As StuartN has just posted:

But the money was donated for a purpose, to see a g-friend at "death's door", which even if it seems less and less relevant because Adrienne is no longer in the sort of "danger" which justifies an immediate, urgent visit, was supposedly why he needed donations in the first place.

It is true that seanmw did not sign a contract to use the money for this purpose only, but seeing as it was the "urgency" of the thing which persuaded a great many people to contribute I think that, if it has not been a scam, one could reasonably argue that seanmw should refund the money ... if for instance he can wait till next year if he likes, and could theoretically save up for a plane fare himself ( or for insurance on his little van and petrol/gas for the trip ... his father apparently gave him a clapped out minivan for his birthday, with no insurance )?

Who thinks that he just "slid" into taking advantage of the situation?

And who thinks that it was a deliberate scam from the start in cahoots with his girlfriend, or alone ( eg. if Adrienne does not exist, if the photos are of his sister, for example )?

And why did he say that once he moved to his dad's at end of August he would be freer to go visit her, ( because not babysitting younger siblings ), if he is going to college, which starts now, and presumably involves going to classes on a regular basis at least a few times a week?

I agree that we cannot *demand* that someone use our donations for the original purpose, nor treat frequent and extensive updates as a right, ( even though it was something that seanmw agreed to at the beginning ), but I also think that anyone accepting large sums of money from strangers cannot reasonably expect the donors to behave as if they have no interest in what happens afterwards; movements of money are a form of communication, and giving and receiving like a form of dialogue. So I'm kind of waiting for an answer! :lol And beginning to think that someone we were "talking" to has just left the conversation, and that a great deal of what they said was untrue. I think I have a right to express my unease, and my "confusion" on the thread which was set up specifically to involve me in this dialogue.

*Perhaps* he is just pee'd off at posting on here about what's happening, but he has also stopped posting anywhere on WP, and it's not because he has no internet.
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