A man pretending to be Bruce Springsteen contacted a fan of his via facebook and laid out a story you’d think no one would believe, but they did. Just remember, people are sending money to fake Nigerian princes all the time. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t still be asking.
CBS Chicago spoke to a woman who asked to only be identified as “Mary”, (I’ll bet she wants to be anonymous), who shared her story.
“I have been loving Bruce Springsteen since the 80’s, ever since i heard him and I thought, oh this guy is so handsome and has a good voice.”
The woman said she commented on a Facebook page she thought belonged to the music legend and then got a message back.
“I’m like ‘Whoa, Bruce Springsteen, I’m good, how are you,’” the woman recalled, admitting that she had no doubt she was talking to the “Born to Run” singer.
The woman and the ersatz Springsteen exchanged photos and texts for about a year.
Then, according to the news outlet, the impostor told the woman he was divorcing his “wife,” Patti Scialfa — whom the real Springsteen is married to — and that he needed money.
The faux star asked her to send him cash using iTunes gift cards.
“I sent him iTunes up to maybe four, five, six hundred bucks, little by little every week,” the die-hard Springsteen fan said.
The scammer got even more money out of the woman when he sent her a photo of a mound of gold purportedly worth millions, saying he needed funds to ship it home from Dubai.
“My mind was just so, so like maybe brainwashed or something, I said, ‘Okay, how much money,’” the woman, who then sent $11,500 through MoneyGram, Western Union and a cashier’s check, told CBS Chicago.
She admitted: “I was vulnerable at the time, but you know it hurt, it hurts and you feel so stupid.”
Bruce Springsteen’s real Facebook page is verified with a check mark by the social media site and has 5.4 million followers.
It’s also unlikely the New Jersey native would need a cash handout.
His net worth is $460 million, according to a 2016 Forbes report.
Don’t you sort of think Bruce will get wind and give her the money back? After all she thought he needed help and helped him.