A lady from Kentucky named McKala got tricked into thinking she was in a secret online relationship with a handsome Netflix star. She thought she was chatting romantically with Dacre Montgomery, the actor from Stranger Things. Despite never meeting or talking on the phone, she believed it for more than a year.
Sadly, she sent the scammer $10,000 and even divorced her husband, all because she wanted to be with the fake actor she thought she knew online.
After she left her husband and sent him lots of money in gift cards, she started questioning if her relationship was real. She reached out to the YouTube series Catfished for assistance.
McKala shared that she met this mysterious person after ending things with her “very toxic” husband. She joined an online forum for artists to connect with fellow creative people. There, she got along well with a stranger who only went by a username. Eventually, this person claimed to be Dacre, one of her favorite actors.
“I’m suspicious from the get-go, until he starts doing things that make me believe he is who he is,” she told the outlet.
The actual Dacre Montgomery has been in a relationship with his model girlfriend, Liv Pollock, for six years. However, the person McKala was talking to online claimed to be Dacre and said they were not happy in their relationship.
“He was venting to me after a few months about his partner, saying she is very controlling of him. He doesn’t get to do the things he wants to do. She’s always there. She’s always got to supervise,” she shared. “I kind of empathize with that because my ex-husband was that way.”
After months of chatting, the person claiming to be ‘Dacre’ confessed to having feelings for McKala and requested her to be his girlfriend.
“He was like, “But you gotta keep it quiet because, you know, I’m still with Liv,”‘ she told catfished.
McKala mentioned that he informed her about breaking up with Liv six months earlier, but they were technically still in a relationship to maintain appearances.
Upon checking both the Instagram pages of the supposed couple, McKala observed that there were no romantic pictures posted during that period. This observation heightened her belief that she was genuinely falling for the actor.
“He wasn’t posting about her. She wasn’t posting about him. The only thing that I have seen in the last two years…was a thing where she was posting about their five-year anniversary,” she said.
When The Catfished team pointed out that ‘a year of not talking to somebody on the phone is a very long time, McKala agreed, acknowledging it as a ‘huge red flag.’ She understood his explanation that he couldn’t call due to Liv being ‘controlling’ and ‘glued at his hip.’
Then, ‘Dacre’ gave her an ultimatum, stating she had to choose between him or her husband. McKala chose him, emphasizing there was ‘no competition.’ She also mentioned that just before season four of Stranger Things came out, he texted her, insisting she had to watch episode four.
“When it came out the next day, he showed up in that episode. I was like, “Well, who else would know that?” she said.
McKala also revealed that he sent her poems resembling those found in the actual actor’s poetry book, DKMH: Poems by Dacre Montgomery. These occurrences alleviated the uncertainties she harbored regarding her online relationship, and when he requested financial assistance, she stepped in to help.
“Before I knew it, it turned into $100, $200 gift cards,” she revealed. He would sell the gift cards for less than their actual value and keep the money for himself.
McKala believed she sent around $10,000 to the person pretending to be Dacre. He claimed he needed the money because his girlfriend controlled his finances, but the Catfished team doubted it. They discovered the real actor earned $150,000 per episode of Stranger Things, and there was no proof he and Liv had split.
Further investigation revealed the check ‘Dacre’ sent was fake, and the scammer even lied about cooking lasagna, using a recipe from Martha Stewart. Despite being heartbroken, McKala was thankful to finally learn the truth about her online relationship.
“Love can make you do crazy, stupid, irrational things,” she admitted, acknowledging that her past trauma made her vulnerable to being scammed. “If you’re someone like me, afraid of abandonment, a big people pleaser, and very co-dependent… These scammers just come in and exploit that.”
Share Your Thoughts:
Let us know your views about this story in the comments below!
Source: Catfished on YouTube
