Not sure how many people were around four years ago for the original drama, but @[email protected] was a banned user from early on the site’s history, and I’ve seen quite a bit of speculation recently that a current frequent poster in c/mutualaid is an alt of hers due to having a similar MO and personal details (such as them both living in the same city)

For context, u/storyofrachel was an unhoused trans woman, who frequently solicited money from the community and had problems with substance abuse. She eventually made a post bragging about scamming money from users here (I myself was one of the users who sent her money) and blowing it on drugs (with a picture of the drugs in question) and a

bunch of homophobic slurs (TW: homophobia, self harm).

She later claimed that her account had been hacked, which frankly I did and do not believe. She was unbanned but later banned for other shit which I don’t recall and am unable to reconstruct from the modlog and came back on a bunch of different alts, all of which were banned.

If there’s any truth to this, it is deeply fucked that this person is still here, evading her ban and scamming people four years later. As one of the people who was taken advantage of previously (and, possibly, again with this current user!), people should at least be able to make an informed decision with all available context. If we want this community to function, and I say this as someone who has sent hundreds of dollars to people over the years through this community, we should be able to guard against bad actors who are trying to take advantage of the compassion and generosity of our user base.

Edit: There’s an Instagram with both usernames on it, publicly available. It’s 100% the same person. Not going to post it because I don’t want anyone to get doxxed but yeah.

Edit edit: I’m going to go touch grass now. Anyone who is being willfully obtuse about why I made this post can read it again or any of my other comments in this thread

  • RedDawn [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    27·
    5 months ago

    This community has really been a life saver for me allowing me to get food for myself and my son when in a precarious situation. I’ve also given back to other users when I’ve had the means to do so.

    It makes me sad to think that somebody would take advantage of the kindness of other users here; that said, it seems like this person is openly struggling with mental health and addiction issues and I have enough first hand and second hand experience with those things myself to know how giving thousands of dollars lump sum to somebody in the middle of it is going to go. I guess I don’t have much useful advice to give here, I just wanted to comment to add another voice in agreement with the other users that this comm is such an important resource and I hope that this incident doesn’t scare people off of donating altogether. Seems like it’d be hard to implement more security without making it harder to donate or receive donations. It’s probably a good idea to check post history before giving and decide for yourself whether giving money to any individual person is the kind of help they really need.