A woman is being dragged online for attacking her cousin for being the victim of an Instagram scam—and then playing the victim when her cousin shared proof with her that her husband had been harassing her.
The scam victim, u/kdott918, shared her story to the popular Reddit forum r/AmITheA**hole. She earned over 8,800 upvotes and 500 comments for her post, "[Am I the A**hole] for exposing my cousin's creepy husband to my entire family?"
The original poster (OP) says that she met her cousin's husband for the first time a year ago at their wedding. From the jump, her cousin's husband made a number of inappropriate comments to her, calling her a "wild child" who was probably a "bad girl" at her college.
He also follows her on Instagram, and sends her Instagram reels, inappropriate comments and DMs—none of which she responds to or even opens. OP never brought it up to her "devout Christian" cousin because they're not close, and OP feels her cousin looks down on her for not sharing her faith.
Things came to a head this week, however, when OP was the victim of a scam. She says the scammer used her photos to set up a fake account, sending messages to her followers to ask for money in exchange for explicit pictures. She says it should have been obvious it was a scam—she says the bio was in "broken English," the included pictures were "poorly cropped screenshots of my two most recent posts" and that the linked Cash App account was just a "random string of numbers and letters."
"The account just looked very fake and many of my friends sent it to me and and reported the account. Of course, the 1 person who apparently fell for it was my cousin's husband," u/kdott918 wrote.
She found out her cousin's husband may have fallen for the obvious scam when her cousin sent a rude message, saying that though she "had been very tolerant" of OP's "sinful lifestyle," the fake account was "too far." When OP responded that the account was a scammer that had been reported to Instagram, her cousin called her a liar that she "pities," and would pray for her.
"I lost it at this point. I called her stupid for falling for an account that was so obviously fake and said that her husband was such a blatant creep it was embarrassing she even married him. I sent screenshots of the months of DM's from him that I never responded to and concluded by saying 'if your marriage is so easily threatened, get a divorce. Don't take your insecurities out on me,'" u/kdott918 wrote.
Soon, however, u/kdott918 started getting phone calls from her mother and grandmother. They accused her of making a "cruel and unjustified" response to her cousin's "honest mistake," as her cousin had apparently showed their family the OP's messages. OP's mom even said that u/kdott918 may no longer be welcome at family gatherings because of the "drama."
One of the biggest red flags of a potential scam is poor or broken English. A 2012 paper from Microsoft Research examined why this has shown to be the case—and the paper revealed that the poor English is intentional.
Many users are already aware of popular scams and can quickly identify them and know to immediately ignore them—or in some cases, try to fight back by scamming the scammers. But by using poor English and other obvious red flags, it filters out all but the most gullible, and thus, the people most likely to send money.
A more well-written email, on the other hand, could potentially ensnare more people, but the paper argues this would result in a number of "false positives." These are people who might reach a second or third level of the scam, but soon enough realize that it's a scam before sending money, thus wasting the scammer's time.
Reddit was disgusted by both the OP's cousin and her "creepy" husband she suspects fell for the scam.
"And no one is saying anything about how the husband tried to get pictures of you? Or tried to hit you up? [Not the A**hole] and good riddance!" u/bbkam123 wrote in the top-rated post with 11,900 upvotes.
The OP responded to u/bbkam123 by saying she "had a feeling" that her cousin only found out when the husband tried to send money to the Cash App account and received no pictures in return, but admits she "could be wrong though" that this is the case.
"Just say something like, 'Her husband has been harassing me for months. I didn't tell anyone except her—she's the one spreading it around. I'm disappointed, but not exactly surprised, that he fell for an internet scam trying to get naked photos of me. If she doesn't want to be humiliated, she should tell her husband to stop humiliating her. I will also welcome an apology from them anytime. Anyone who asks me to apologize to her condones his inappropriate behaviour and will not longer have a relationship with me. Thanks,'" u/Agreeable-Celery811 suggested.
"[Not the A**hole]. The fact that your mom is worrying about the relationship with the family, and your grandma is worried about the drama, but not the husband's creepiness is disgusting," u/Shejuan01 wrote.
"She wasn't 'humiliated,' she was angry, and she wanted to turn the tables on you in revenge for her husband's wandering eyes. It's easier to be pissed at you than it is to honestly deal with her damaged marriage. She knows her husband isn't going to change, and she doesn't feel like she's 'allowed' to divorce him after making such a show of being a Good Christian Woman, so the only outlet she has is petty vengeance on a third party," u/DiTrastevere speculated.
"[Not the A**hole] - I don't know about you but I wouldn't be worried about not being invited to family gatherings," u/DetailedAmbivalence added.
"[Not the A**hole] - ask your mom why she's defending a predator," u/knr27 asked."
"Basically she said I can't control the actions of others I can only control my actions and my reaction was out of line," the OP replied.
Newsweek reached out to u/kdott918 for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Matt Keeley is a Newsweek editor based in Seattle. His focus is reporting on trends and internet culture. He has ... Read more
