The caller was trying to set up a call with a real person.
“Please answer this call for us,” the person said.
“I’m a real man.”
It was a scammer, the person on the other end said.
It was his friend, he said.
They agreed to meet at a bar on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
I was in a state of shock.
I didn’t have time to think, I thought.
The caller told the friend that he had a problem.
He wanted $10,000 in cash, and he wanted the friend to send him the money.
The friend did not have any money.
He was worried.
He had just recently received a call from his ex-girlfriend asking him to meet for a drink.
I felt relieved, the friend said.
I told him that I’d just gotten off the phone with the ex-boyfriend, and I’d have to find him somewhere else.
The call continued.
I’m sorry.
I don’t think I can go through with it.
I’d better go to the police, the man said.
When I got to the bar, I recognized the man, he had an accent.
He asked for $10.
The person in the bar said it was his brother-in-law.
I had no idea who the brother-friend was, but I knew that the brother was a computer hacker, and if I gave him the amount, I’d be in big trouble.
The brother-on-the-phone said, I’m trying to help you.
I’ve got a few questions.
Why did you call?
I’ve been following you for a while, the brother told me.
Do you have any business cards?
I don I do.
What kind of business?
I just want you to send the money, he told me, because I’d like to know where the money was going.
I gave the money to the friend, and then we left.
I wasn’t worried about the brother, I just wanted him to send me the money so that I could get my life back.
In September 2016, I began to receive text messages from people who had just received the $10 million.
Some were from a realtor who wanted to sell the apartment I had bought, and others were from people asking if I was going to be able to send money to my ex-wife.
The phone calls came and went.
Some of the messages were so serious that I became worried that someone would call me.
I tried to call the number on my old account and told the woman who answered it that I was out of town.
She hung up on me, saying she had to leave.
I wanted to be home with my family, I told myself.
I started to panic.
I went to work.
I would wake up at 3 a.m. to look at the clock on my phone.
The calls kept coming.
My ex-husband and I would be driving down the street and the guy would be asking me if I needed a ride home.
When he asked me to come home, I would ask him if I could leave my laptop in my car.
I drove him home.
I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll send the rest of the money,” I told my brother-husband, he replied.
I just needed to make sure that I would get the money when I got back, I said.
That’s when I started having nightmares, my brother told The Washington Post.
I got a call, and when I answered, it was my brother saying, “I’ve got your money.
I know you’ll come home.
Just tell me where the cash is.”
It’s very hard to tell when a stranger is trying to scam you, my ex told me in an interview.
“He’s a smart person,” he said of the stranger.
“You just don’t have enough information to be confident in saying anything.”
I’m going to send you money when you get back, my friend said, but it’s not going to go to him.
My brother-brother texted me and said, you should be happy that I didn´t give you money.
So I told them the story, and the text message started to flow again.
I can only imagine the horror of their reaction.
They said, oh my god, I can’t believe it.
He’s a dumbass.
But my brother did tell me that he believed it was a real scammer and wanted the money as a reward for getting me back.
My family had no clue what to do, and they kept trying to call me back, but there was nothing they could do.
I finally stopped answering his text messages and started to give him my phone number.
My friend called back the next day, and after he asked my brother why I had not replied, I gave my phone to him as payment.
I took a picture of it.
They put it in the computer and sent