A week of false claims

Posted by kent on June 19th, 2009

Yesterday, we reported on Thomas Parkins who dressed as his deceased mother in order to claim her Social Security checks. But this was not the only fraud this week that left us scratching our heads:

Rebecca Beshausen abused the kindness of online strangers by telling the story of her pregnancy with a child she knew would be born with a severe, life-threatening disability. Yet, it turns out that the story was fabricated. In the end, a picture of the fake baby gave her away. Beshausen claims she received no money, but did receive a few gifts.

In another curious case, Fidel Castro's son, Antonio, was tricked into a false online relationship with a 46-year-old man. Antonio thought that Luis Dominguez was a brunette bombshell named Claudia. Dominguez didn't get money from Antonio, but the sham relationship yielded some private info from the Cuban dictator's son, and exposed a lifestyle that's above and beyond what the average Cuban lives.

The moral of the story is that not all impersonation is done for money. While we offer reviews of top-of-the-line identity theft protection services to help safeguard finances, no service can stop the oldest method of the con: the need for human contact.

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