A woman was duped into entering into an online connection with a fraudster who pretended to be the Australian actor Dacre Montgomery from “Stranger Things.”
In addition to lying about many other things, he conned her out of approximately $10,000.A woman who appeared on a “Catfished” episode thought she was having a covert online romance with the main character of the Netflix series “Stranger Things.”
Kentucky native McKala was persuaded to believe that she was dating Australian star Dacre Montgomery. She recently divorced her spouse after a “toxic” marriage, and she aspires to be an actor and director.
She made the decision to join an online artists’ forum to meet other creatives while navigating her single life, and there she became friends with a famous actor who also happened to be one of her favorites.
Despite her initial skepticism, McKala said that the imposter persuaded her that she was speaking with the “real” Montgomery. For instance, the actor is reported to have spent six years in a committed relationship with the model Liv Pollock, and they both expressed how unhappy they were.
The single woman could identify with the false actor’s claims that his girlfriend was intrusive and scrutinized every move she made because she had experienced a similar situation in her first marriage, according to McKala. She claimed to have looked through his Instagram as well, but all she could find was a two-year-old photo of them.
However, as their online friendship grew, McKala began to believe more of his claims and ended up paying him a sizable sum of money.
Over the months, as their communication and connection deepened, the person requested McKala to be his girlfriend but instructed her to keep it a secret because he was still seeing Pollock.
On the contrary, McKala said the imposter had actually admitted to her that despite their six-month breakup, they were still “technically” dating because they had to appear in public.
She did, however, recurrently ponder why they never spoke on the phone. She was even forewarned by the “Catfish” crew that going a year without hearing his voice was concerning.
The fact that they had no romantic photos together on Montgomery’s Instagram led McKala to believe the break-up was real, however she acknowledged that she also believed it was a red flag.
The bogus actor gave McKala an ultimatum to choose between him and her spouse as their connection developed. McKala had no trouble making her decision because she was already in love with her hidden online boyfriend.
But the conman never stopped inventing new lies. When he once requested that McKala watch a certain episode of “Stranger Things,” she once more questioned how someone other than Montgomery could have known such information.
She also claimed that he sent her poetry from his collection, “DKMH: Poems by Dacre Montgomery.”But when he requested financial assistance, things became even more suspect.
Although McKala claimed that she initially sent him $100 and $200 gift cards, she actually sent him around $10,000. He was said to be in need of money because of his “controlling girlfriend.”
The Truth Finally Came Out
The cast of “Catfished” learned that the real actor received $150,000 for each “Stranger Things” installment. They discovered that Montgomery’s long-term girlfriend was never broken up with.
A bogus check was also sent to McKala by the con artist, who also snapped a photo of a lasagna he claimed to have prepared using a Martha Stewart cookbook.
McKala was disappointed to have lost so much money, but she was relieved to learn the truth. Love makes you do crazy, stupid, irrational things,’ she said, realizing that it had driven her to do things she had never imagined.
She warned other people and said, “If you’re someone like me, you’re afraid of abandonment, and you’re a real big people pleaser, and you’re very co-dependent… These scammers, they just kind of come in, and they leech off that.”