Latest / Martin Animations / 7 TRUE FACEBOOK HORROR STORIES ANIMATED

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7 TRUE FACEBOOK HORROR STORIES ANIMATED · Martin Animations

0:01
Speaker 1: For a few years, I tried my hand at scrapping
0:04
Speaker 1: in my area for a living, and surprisingly, I did
0:07
Speaker 1: pretty well for myself. Scrap metal was abundant in my town,
0:11
Speaker 1: and people would even offer to pay me to take
0:13
Speaker 1: their dead utilities like washing machines and ovens off their hands,
0:17
Speaker 1: which I would then take to the scrapyard and make
0:20
Speaker 1: a quick little bit of money. Now, a big source
0:23
Speaker 1: of my contacts ended up coming from social media, such
0:26
Speaker 1: as Instagram or Facebook Marketplace, and for the most part,
0:30
Speaker 1: everything went smoothly. But every now and then, I would
0:34
Speaker 1: get a shady-seeming opportunity that I would have to think
0:38
Speaker 1: twice about. I'll never forget when I was messaged on
0:41
Speaker 1: Facebook to pick up a broken lawnmower and a torn-down
0:45
Speaker 1: shed from a property about an hour away from my house.
0:49
Speaker 1: It was in September of 2017. and I typically didn't
0:53
Speaker 1: pick up scrap after dark because the yard was usually
0:56
Speaker 1: closed by then. But it seemed like this guy had
0:59
Speaker 1: a lot for me to pick up, and he claimed
1:01
Speaker 1: to only be able to meet after he got home
1:03
Speaker 1: from work around 6pm. So I figured, why not? What's
1:07
Speaker 1: the worst that could happen, right? The day came that
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Speaker 1: I was supposed to meet him, and I messaged him
1:14
Speaker 1: to confirm that everything was still good to go. And
1:17
Speaker 1: once I got the okay, I hopped into my truck,
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Speaker 1: and began making my way to the man's house. There
1:23
Speaker 1: wasn't much traffic, so the drive only took about 45 minutes,
1:27
Speaker 1: but by the time I got to the small, one-lane
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Speaker 1: road where the man lived, the sun had already set,
1:34
Speaker 1: the road was surrounded by thick woods on either side
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Speaker 1: of it, and it almost looked like the guy's house
1:40
Speaker 1: was the only one on the entire road. After driving
1:44
Speaker 1: a bit down the one-lane road, I finally saw a
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Speaker 1: beat-up looking mailbox that had the number 43 on it,
1:51
Speaker 1: which let me know that I had reached my destination.
1:54
Speaker 1: I slowly pulled into the driveway, and the first thing
1:58
Speaker 1: that I noticed was how overgrown the yard looked. From
2:02
Speaker 1: the looks of things, the lawnmower had been broken for
2:05
Speaker 1: some time. As I got closer to the house, I
2:08
Speaker 1: could tell from the dim light shining through the window
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Speaker 1: that the owner was home. I parked my truck, and
2:15
Speaker 1: before I could take my phone out to send the
2:17
Speaker 1: man a message, I noticed someone coming out of the
2:20
Speaker 1: front door. It looked like the guy that I was
2:23
Speaker 1: there to meet, so I shut my truck off and
2:25
Speaker 1: stepped outside. As soon as my foot touched the pavement,
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Speaker 1: I practically jumped out of my skin when I heard
2:34
Speaker 1: what sounded like a very large dog barking. The man
2:39
Speaker 1: came down the stairs and claimed that I didn't have
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Speaker 1: anything to worry about and said the dog was inside,
2:45
Speaker 1: but I still couldn't help but flinch with every step
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Speaker 1: I took, wondering if I was going to be attacked.
2:51
Speaker 1: I did my best to follow the man around as
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Speaker 1: I began gathering all the scrap metal that he had
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Speaker 1: for me, but about halfway through my trips, back and
3:01
Speaker 1: forth from the yard to my truck, I couldn't help
3:04
Speaker 1: but feel like I was hearing the sound of of
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Speaker 1: a child screaming underneath the sound of the loud barking.
3:12
Speaker 1: I tried to remain calm as I said my goodbye
3:14
Speaker 1: to the man, and as soon as I hit the road,
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Speaker 1: I pulled my phone out and called my wife to
3:19
Speaker 1: tell her what just happened. She was concerned with what
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Speaker 1: I had heard and said that I should call the police,
3:25
Speaker 1: and I was happy that I did. I informed the
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Speaker 1: officer that I heard a child crying and what sounded
3:31
Speaker 1: like an aggressive animal inside a run-down home. and when
3:35
Speaker 1: they showed up, they ended up finding a small child
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Speaker 1: who did not belong to the owner. It turned out
3:41
Speaker 1: to be a missing child from two states away who
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Speaker 1: had been missing for more than three weeks at that time.
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Speaker 1: There was also reportedly no dog on site, and the
3:52
Speaker 1: police believe the man was using the recording of a
3:56
Speaker 1: dog barking that was being played over speakers to try
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Speaker 1: to drown out the child for crying for help. When
4:03
Speaker 1: the case went to court, It turned out that the
4:06
Speaker 1: only reason he needed the scrap removed in the first
4:09
Speaker 1: place was that his landlord was going to evict him
4:12
Speaker 1: if he didn't get it out of there.
4:20
Speaker 2: Alright, so this occurred when I was 16 and because
4:23
Speaker 2: of what happened I will never use social media again.
4:26
Speaker 2: It was getting near the end of the school year
4:28
Speaker 2: which meant that we would have the summer off in
4:30
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks. It also meant that teachers would
4:33
Speaker 2: let the class have free time and rarely give out assignments. Anyway,
4:38
Speaker 2: I was in class sitting with my friends chatting as
4:41
Speaker 2: our teacher did give us free time. We were pretty
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Speaker 2: much talking about all the things girls in high school
4:46
Speaker 2: would talk about. What we were doing over the summer, college, jobs,
4:51
Speaker 2: a car, and even graduation. As one of my friends
4:55
Speaker 2: was talking about how her boss just fired her from
4:57
Speaker 2: her job, I got a notification from Facebook on my phone.
5:02
Speaker 2: a username that I have never seen before sent me
5:04
Speaker 2: a friend request. Let me be as clear as I can.
5:08
Speaker 2: Getting friend requests from unknown users is no big surprise
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Speaker 2: to me. What I would do is if I knew
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Speaker 2: the person I would accept their request and request to
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Speaker 2: be their friend as well but if I didn't know
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Speaker 2: who they were I would just accept the request or
5:21
Speaker 2: decline it. In this case I didn't know who this
5:24
Speaker 2: person was so I declined him. Just then I received
5:28
Speaker 2: another notification on my phone from Facebook. It was the
5:32
Speaker 2: same username and he sent me a direct message. It
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Speaker 2: read something along the lines of, Hey, you're really pretty.
5:40
Speaker 2: Would you like to chat? I responded telling him that
5:43
Speaker 2: I didn't know who he was and apologized. Keep in mind,
5:47
Speaker 2: this guy looked to be about 40 and I was
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Speaker 2: 18 at the time, so this was starting to become
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Speaker 2: very creepy. My friends eventually wanted to see what I
5:56
Speaker 2: was up to and so I showed them the chat.
5:59
Speaker 2: Two of my friends really didn't care and the other
6:02
Speaker 2: said to just block him. I felt like blocking him
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Speaker 2: wouldn't be the right thing to do at the time
6:07
Speaker 2: so I just left it alone. When I got home,
6:11
Speaker 2: I received another notification on my phone from the same guy.
6:15
Speaker 2: He said that we will get to know each other
6:17
Speaker 2: and that we would start a quote romantic relationship. I
6:21
Speaker 2: was beyond creeped out at this point and so I
6:24
Speaker 2: blocked him and thought it was over. I'd say not
6:27
Speaker 2: even 10 minutes later, I received another message from Facebook,
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Speaker 2: but with a different username. It read, Why did you
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Speaker 2: block me? I want to get to know you. I
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Speaker 2: told him to leave me alone, and that he was
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Speaker 2: way too older than me, and that if he didn't
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Speaker 2: stop that I would call the police and report him.
6:44
Speaker 2: He then started using profanity and making threats, and that
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Speaker 2: he was going to find me and kill me. I
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Speaker 2: blocked him once again and called the cops but of
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Speaker 2: course they couldn't do anything since he really didn't commit
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Speaker 2: a crime. I find that BS but whatever. His account
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Speaker 2: was also taken down and even if the police could
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Speaker 2: track him I couldn't remember his username. About a week
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Speaker 2: or so went by and I was starting to forget
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Speaker 2: about what happened. I just wanted to graduate high school
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Speaker 2: and be done. But a few days later I was
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Speaker 2: home alone in my room on my computer when I
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Speaker 2: heard my dogs barking at something. I went to go
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Speaker 2: see what they were barking at. They were barking at
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Speaker 2: something outside of the sliding glass door, but I couldn't
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Speaker 2: see anything since it was dark out there. I looked
7:31
Speaker 2: a bit harder, and I could see someone standing in
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Speaker 2: our yard, looking straight at me. He then took off running,
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Speaker 2: and I never saw him again. I have no idea
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Speaker 2: if whoever that was was the person on Facebook, but
7:45
Speaker 2: I believe that it might have been.
7:59
Speaker 1: For the longest time, I was looking for a specific
8:03
Speaker 1: Funko Pop from a limited Marvel series that had come out.
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Speaker 1: I'd been collecting them ever since I was with my ex-boyfriend,
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Speaker 1: who actually got me into comic books. And even though
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Speaker 1: we had a pretty nasty breakup, I still wanted to
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Speaker 1: complete my collection and continue to love everything Marvel and DC. Well,
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Speaker 1: after about three years of looking for the final Pop
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Speaker 1: that I needed for my collection, I saw that someone
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Speaker 1: named Aaron had listed it for sale on the Facebook marketplace.
8:33
Speaker 1: After exchanging a couple messages, we both figured out a
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Speaker 1: good time to meet, which ended up being around 8pm
8:39
Speaker 1: the following night. The two of us agreed to meet
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Speaker 1: at the mall, because Aaron claimed to have some clothes
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Speaker 1: shopping to do, and I actually needed to pick up
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Speaker 1: my younger brother from his job at the pretzel stand,
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Speaker 1: so it worked out. When the time came, I pulled
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Speaker 1: into the mall parking lot, at the entrance closest to
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Speaker 1: the JCPenney, which was where we agreed to meet. And
9:00
Speaker 1: before I even made it to an empty parking spot,
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Speaker 1: I recognized my ex's car. James loved his red Miata,
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Speaker 1: and we took so many pictures of it that I
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Speaker 1: could pick it out from a lineup. I decided that
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Speaker 1: I didn't want to deal with him, so I ended
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Speaker 1: up driving over to the movie theater parking lot and
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Speaker 1: sending Aaron a message letting him know I was there.
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Speaker 2: However.
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Speaker 1: About two minutes after I sent the message, I noticed
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Speaker 1: that Aaron had seen it, but not replied. And before
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Speaker 1: I could send him another message to make sure that
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Speaker 1: he actually saw it, I saw James in my review
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Speaker 1: mirror walking toward my car. I'm glad the car was locked,
9:39
Speaker 1: because as he walked up to my door, he tried
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Speaker 1: to open it. When he realized he couldn't, he began
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Speaker 1: yelling through the window asking me to just hear him out.
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Speaker 1: I ignored him and pulled out my phone to message
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Speaker 1: Aaron and my brother to let them know what was happening.
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Speaker 1: But when he saw Aaron's name on my phone, James
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Speaker 1: said something that surprised me. He's not coming, you know,
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Speaker 1: he said. I looked up at him, confused as to
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Speaker 1: why he would say something like that. That was when
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Speaker 1: he let me know that he was James, and created
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Speaker 1: the account and the marketplace post because I had been
10:16
Speaker 1: ignoring him. I immediately began to freak out and began
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Speaker 1: texting my brother letting him know that I would meet
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Speaker 1: him in a different parking lot. There was no way
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Speaker 1: I was getting out of the car at that point.
10:28
Speaker 1: But the more I ignored James to text my brother,
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Speaker 1: the angrier he got. And eventually he got so mad
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Speaker 1: that he began smacking my window to get my attention.
10:39
Speaker 1: I turned my car on and as I put my
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Speaker 1: car in reverse, James smacking turned to him punch him.
10:46
Speaker 1: And I screamed as he began trying to break my
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Speaker 1: window and yelling at me to stop. He kept yelling,
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Speaker 1: I just want to talk to you. But I had
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Speaker 1: never seen him so angry. I pulled out as fast
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Speaker 1: as I could in fear of my life and began
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Speaker 1: driving around the mall wondering where I would be safe
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Speaker 1: to pick up my brother. I was afraid that James
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Speaker 1: was following me. Eventually, my brother texted me back and
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Speaker 1: told me that he was standing outside of the entrance
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Speaker 1: near the side of the mall and that I could
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Speaker 1: swing by and pick him up. I liked this plan
11:19
Speaker 1: because I didn't have to actually park. I grabbed my
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Speaker 1: brother and we began driving home. The entire time I
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Speaker 1: was paranoid that James was following me. Thankfully, there was
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Speaker 1: no sign of him after returning to my house. My
11:35
Speaker 1: father ended up messaging his parents. and letting them know
11:38
Speaker 1: that if he stepped foot near me again, we would
11:42
Speaker 1: be filing a restraining order. That was the last time
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Speaker 1: I heard from him, but I'll never forget the look
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Speaker 1: on his face as he tried to break my window
11:51
Speaker 1: to get to me. I had just purchased a new
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Speaker 1: car after finally saving up enough money, and since my
12:04
Speaker 1: driveway had limited space... I decided to sell the Hyundai
12:08
Speaker 1: that I used to drive. I tried asking around to
12:11
Speaker 1: see if any of my friends or family members might
12:13
Speaker 1: need a car, but when no one was offering to
12:16
Speaker 1: buy it, I decided to list it on the Facebook marketplace.
12:20
Speaker 1: It was a 2003 Sonata with 140,000 miles, and based
12:24
Speaker 1: on what I saw similar cars going for on the site,
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Speaker 1: I listed it for $ 4, 000 or best offer. I was
12:30
Speaker 1: a little surprised at how long it took before someone
12:34
Speaker 1: finally messaged me about the car. But after about two weeks,
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Speaker 1: I finally felt like I had a solid offer. I
12:41
Speaker 1: had to drop the asking price to $ 3, 400. But when
12:45
Speaker 1: the guy messaged me, offered to pay cash, I decided
12:49
Speaker 1: to take the money rather than wait for a better offer.
12:52
Speaker 1: The man's name according to Facebook was Lucas. And after
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Speaker 1: discussing it, He asked me if I would be able
12:59
Speaker 1: to meet him at a garage that he supposedly owned.
13:03
Speaker 1: He claimed to not have a working vehicle at the
13:05
Speaker 1: moment and was hoping I would be able to drop
13:08
Speaker 1: the car off. And not thinking anything of it, I
13:11
Speaker 1: checked to see how far the garage was from my
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Speaker 1: house and asked my friend if he would follow me
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Speaker 1: in his car and drive me home after I made
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Speaker 1: the sale. My buddy Jeremy said that it wouldn't be
13:23
Speaker 1: a problem. and when the time came, I drove over
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Speaker 1: to Jeremy's house so that he could follow behind me
13:29
Speaker 1: till we got to the garage. The route to the
13:32
Speaker 1: garage was mostly highway for the first 15 or so
13:35
Speaker 1: minutes of the drive, and then we had to take
13:38
Speaker 1: the side roads for another 5 minutes before the GPS
13:41
Speaker 1: told me that I had reached my destination. I could
13:44
Speaker 1: see the garage, but in my rear view, There was
13:47
Speaker 1: no sign of Jeremy. I figured that I must have
13:49
Speaker 1: lost him at the light or something, but considering I
13:52
Speaker 1: put the address into his phone, I figured he would
13:55
Speaker 1: be there shortly. I planned on waiting in the car
13:57
Speaker 1: until he got there, but before I could message Lucas
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Speaker 1: to let him know what was going on, I could
14:02
Speaker 1: see three men coming out from the side of the garage.
14:06
Speaker 1: I tried to see if any of them looked like
14:08
Speaker 1: Lucas' profile picture, but as far as I could tell,
14:12
Speaker 1: he wasn't there. I hoped that they just happened to
14:15
Speaker 1: be walking in the direction of my car and were
14:17
Speaker 1: just going to pass me. Sadly, that's not what happened.
14:21
Speaker 1: As the three men got closer to my car, I
14:24
Speaker 1: could tell that they were heading right for me. I
14:28
Speaker 1: smiled and nodded, thinking that maybe they just wanted to
14:32
Speaker 1: know who I was and why I was there. But
14:35
Speaker 1: before I could even begin rolling down my window, the
14:39
Speaker 1: man closest to me pulled a gun out of his
14:42
Speaker 1: waistband and pointed it in my direction. My hands instinctively
14:48
Speaker 1: left the steering wheel and went up in the air
14:51
Speaker 1: as I hoped and prayed for him not to pull
14:53
Speaker 1: the trigger. His two friends approached my door and opened
14:57
Speaker 1: it with ease as I didn't have the chance to
14:59
Speaker 1: lock it. And before I knew it, I was on
15:02
Speaker 1: the ground. I tried not to make any sudden moves
15:05
Speaker 1: as the men loaded into my car and within a
15:08
Speaker 1: second they were pulling away. It all happened in under
15:12
Speaker 1: a minute and I was in absolute shock. On one hand,
15:16
Speaker 1: I was glad to be alive, but on the other,
15:19
Speaker 1: I was still really confused about what just happened to me.
15:23
Speaker 1: I got up off the ground and looked down the
15:26
Speaker 1: road to see if Jeremy had caught up yet, but
15:28
Speaker 1: there was no sign of his car. I walked over
15:31
Speaker 1: to the garage and looked inside, and that was when
15:34
Speaker 1: I realized that I had been conned from the beginning.
15:38
Speaker 1: Through a window, I could see that the garage had
15:41
Speaker 1: been abandoned for God knows how long, and before I
15:45
Speaker 1: even pulled out my phone to check, I knew that
15:48
Speaker 1: Lucas had used a fake profile. I opened up Facebook
15:53
Speaker 1: and tried to find his profile only to discover that
15:56
Speaker 1: that his account had been deleted, even though it was
15:59
Speaker 1: active right before I pulled up to the garage. I
16:03
Speaker 1: called the police while I waited for Jeremy to arrive
16:05
Speaker 1: and reported the car stolen. Jeremy eventually showed up, and
16:09
Speaker 1: the two of us got out of there as fast
16:11
Speaker 1: as we could. Every now and then, I wonder what
16:14
Speaker 1: happened with that car, but as far as I know,
16:17
Speaker 1: the police never found it. All I know is I'll
16:20
Speaker 1: never use Facebook to sell something like that again. My
16:44
Speaker 1: name is Jamie.
16:46
Speaker 3: A few years ago, several strange things started happening. It
16:49
Speaker 3: all began around Facebook. I logged into my account one
16:53
Speaker 3: day to find a new message from somebody. I used
16:57
Speaker 3: Facebook pretty regularly at the time, and I had for years.
17:00
Speaker 3: Over all the time that I had of Facebook, I
17:02
Speaker 3: received hundreds of friend requests. I certainly didn't know many
17:06
Speaker 3: of the people on my friends list. I would probably
17:08
Speaker 3: get about 5 to 10 friend requests per week on average,
17:11
Speaker 3: and most of the time I would just accept them.
17:14
Speaker 3: The message that I had received looked like spam. It
17:17
Speaker 3: was like multiple links, and those links were really long.
17:21
Speaker 3: There was no text to go along with the links,
17:23
Speaker 3: and I didn't open them. It was sent from some
17:26
Speaker 3: guy with no profile picture. I figured that he was
17:28
Speaker 3: some spam account, and I accidentally accepted a friend request
17:31
Speaker 3: from him or something in the past. I deleted the
17:34
Speaker 3: conversation and unfriended the guy. But only the next day,
17:38
Speaker 3: I got a very similar message. It was from another user.
17:42
Speaker 3: This time, The user did have a profile picture, but
17:44
Speaker 3: it was really generic. I think it was just a
17:46
Speaker 3: logo of a sports team. This person had also sent
17:49
Speaker 3: some random links. By now, I was suspecting that there
17:52
Speaker 3: was some type of Facebook hack going around and spam
17:55
Speaker 3: messages were being sent. I just deleted them and went on.
17:59
Speaker 3: But they didn't stop. The next day, I had spam
18:02
Speaker 3: messages from multiple accounts. I was wondering what was going on. Then,
18:07
Speaker 3: the day after that is when things got even weirder
18:09
Speaker 3: and took a creepy twist. I saw that I had
18:12
Speaker 3: a friend request, and when I looked at it, the
18:15
Speaker 3: username was JamieSmithSucks. Jamie Smith is actually my real name,
18:20
Speaker 3: and I also got a friend request with somebody with
18:22
Speaker 3: the username JamieSmithIsAnIdiot. I clicked on these profiles, and they
18:26
Speaker 3: looked like they had just been created. Somebody was seemingly
18:30
Speaker 3: trying to mess with me. I didn't know who, and
18:32
Speaker 3: I didn't know why. Obviously, I declined those goofy friend requests,
18:36
Speaker 3: and I decided that I would not go on Facebook
18:38
Speaker 3: for a few days. I deleted the app from my phone,
18:42
Speaker 3: and I didn't go on it through my laptop either.
18:44
Speaker 3: But I couldn't escape the strange things. The next day
18:47
Speaker 3: or two went by fine, but then, one night at
18:49
Speaker 3: about midnight, there was a knock on my front door.
18:53
Speaker 3: I lived by myself in an apartment, and I walked
18:56
Speaker 3: over to the door wondering who would be there so late.
18:59
Speaker 3: No one was there when I looked. The next day,
19:01
Speaker 3: this happened again. A knocking at my door, but nobody
19:05
Speaker 3: was there when I looked outside. The day after that,
19:08
Speaker 3: I left my place to find that there was a
19:09
Speaker 3: picture on the floor of right in front of my door.
19:12
Speaker 4: The picture was my.
19:13
Speaker 3: Facebook profile pic, and it appeared as though somebody had
19:16
Speaker 3: just printed it off on a piece of paper. This
19:19
Speaker 3: was really starting to concern me, but I had no
19:21
Speaker 3: idea what could be done about it. The last straw
19:24
Speaker 3: was the next day. It was 11 o'clock at night,
19:27
Speaker 3: and I was home in my apartment. There was once
19:30
Speaker 3: again another knocking at my front door. Immediately following the knock,
19:35
Speaker 3: I heard that the knob to the door was turned. Luckily,
19:37
Speaker 3: the door was in fact locked. I walked over and
19:40
Speaker 3: looked out. No one was there again. I opened up
19:44
Speaker 3: the door, and on the ground was at least 100
19:46
Speaker 3: pieces of paper with my profile picture printed on them.
19:50
Speaker 3: They were all stacked in a pile. I took them
19:52
Speaker 3: all and went to the police the next day. I
19:54
Speaker 3: told them everything and made a report. Beyond that, there
19:57
Speaker 3: wasn't much that I could do. But surprisingly, after I
20:01
Speaker 3: went to the police, everything just stopped. There was no
20:04
Speaker 3: more knocks at my door, no more things left outside,
20:07
Speaker 3: and no more weird Facebook messages or friend requests. I
20:10
Speaker 3: still don't know who did that to me, though. This
20:23
Speaker 3: happened many years ago in 2013. I used Facebook quite
20:26
Speaker 3: a bit back then, but I don't really use it
20:28
Speaker 3: at all anymore. On a daily basis, I would use
20:31
Speaker 3: the Facebook app on my phone and had the Messenger
20:33
Speaker 3: app as well. I talked to several of my friends
20:36
Speaker 3: that way, and when this happened, I was about 19
20:38
Speaker 3: years old. I had probably upwards of 500 friends on there,
20:42
Speaker 3: which is a lot of people, but I've seen accounts
20:44
Speaker 3: with thousands. Anyways, I got a friend request from a
20:48
Speaker 3: girl named Veronica. I saw that we had about five
20:51
Speaker 3: mutual friends, and based on her picture, she looked nice.
20:55
Speaker 3: I looked at her profile page, but there wasn't much there.
20:58
Speaker 3: Just her age, which was also 19, and she had
21:00
Speaker 3: two pictures, and I saw that she had about 200 friends.
21:04
Speaker 3: After skimming over her page, I didn't actually know who
21:06
Speaker 3: she was, but I accepted the friend request. Our mutual
21:10
Speaker 3: friends were some people who I had gone to high
21:11
Speaker 3: school with, but didn't really know all that well, as
21:14
Speaker 3: well as one other person who I didn't go to
21:16
Speaker 3: high school with, but lived in the general area. Not
21:19
Speaker 3: too long after I accepted her request, she sent me
21:21
Speaker 3: a message. I went to the Messenger app, and I
21:24
Speaker 3: started talking with her. She was really cool, and we
21:27
Speaker 3: hit it off. We talked for probably about a week
21:30
Speaker 3: before we wanted to meet up. I knew that she
21:32
Speaker 3: lived in the area, but I didn't know exactly where.
21:35
Speaker 3: Veronica suggested that we meet at a local mall. and
21:38
Speaker 3: there was a really popular shopping center about 10 minutes
21:40
Speaker 3: from my house. We decided to meet that Saturday at
21:44
Speaker 3: 11 a.m. In the meantime, we kept talking quite a
21:47
Speaker 3: bit just like usual. When it was Saturday, I drove
21:51
Speaker 3: to the mall and went inside. It was pretty busy
21:54
Speaker 3: with it being a weekend. I had let Veronica know
21:56
Speaker 3: when I was leaving, and I think she left at
21:58
Speaker 3: around the same time as me. When I got inside,
22:01
Speaker 3: I messaged her that I was there, but that's when
22:04
Speaker 3: she stopped replying to me initially. At first, she told
22:07
Speaker 3: me that she was inside the mall and would look
22:08
Speaker 3: for me, but after that, I told her where I
22:11
Speaker 3: was and she didn't go there. I was standing in
22:13
Speaker 3: the food court for like 10 minutes and didn't see
22:16
Speaker 3: any sign of her. I reached out to her again,
22:18
Speaker 3: but did not get a response. I did see that
22:21
Speaker 3: she had seen my message though. When she didn't show
22:23
Speaker 3: up for another 5 minutes, I decided to walk around
22:26
Speaker 3: the mall looking for her. I figured that maybe the
22:28
Speaker 3: signal on her phone was bad or something, or maybe
22:31
Speaker 3: she had put her phone in her pocket with our
22:32
Speaker 3: conversation still open. I was just telling myself things like that,
22:36
Speaker 3: but I started to get a bad feeling. The mall
22:38
Speaker 3: was pretty big. It wasn't like the Mall of America
22:41
Speaker 3: or anything, but it was a decent size, and it
22:43
Speaker 3: did have two levels. There were also a lot of
22:45
Speaker 3: people there, so it would be tough, but not impossible,
22:48
Speaker 3: to find someone. At one point though, when I was
22:51
Speaker 3: looking around, I did see this one guy who kind
22:53
Speaker 3: of looked like he was staring at me from afar.
22:56
Speaker 3: When I walked all around the mall, I saw the
22:58
Speaker 3: guy again, but he was walking a ways back behind me.
23:02
Speaker 3: I walked around for maybe 20 minutes. I really wanted
23:05
Speaker 3: to meet Veronica, but the more I walked around, the
23:08
Speaker 3: more I felt like she wasn't actually there. Then, finally,
23:12
Speaker 3: I felt my phone vibrate. I looked, and Veronica had
23:15
Speaker 3: sent me a message. She said, come to the entrance.
23:18
Speaker 1: By the food court.
23:19
Speaker 3: That was the first area that I had been, and
23:21
Speaker 3: I had told her when I was there. I walked
23:24
Speaker 3: back over to it, which took me about two or
23:26
Speaker 3: three minutes. When I got back there, I looked around.
23:29
Speaker 3: It was still crowded, but I didn't see Veronica. I
23:33
Speaker 3: was a good ways away from the entrance doors, and
23:35
Speaker 3: I started to walk over to them. But that's when
23:37
Speaker 3: I noticed that the same guy that I had seen
23:39
Speaker 3: multiple times before was right there. He was standing right
23:43
Speaker 3: by the entrance and kind of looking around. Then, when
23:46
Speaker 3: he made eye contact with me for a brief moment,
23:48
Speaker 3: he walked behind one of the doors. I started to
23:51
Speaker 3: get suspicious, and I decided that I was just going
23:53
Speaker 3: to leave, but I was going to leave in a
23:55
Speaker 3: different door than that one. I began walking in the
23:58
Speaker 3: opposite direction. When I did, I noticed the guy then
24:01
Speaker 3: start to walk through the food court towards me. I
24:04
Speaker 3: picked up the pace and turned a corner to another hallway.
24:07
Speaker 3: I walked quickly and did make it to the exit.
24:10
Speaker 3: I didn't see the man behind me when I made
24:12
Speaker 3: it there. After that, I walked around the mall on
24:14
Speaker 3: the outside until I made it to the parking lot
24:16
Speaker 3: that I had parked in. Then, I drove home. By
24:20
Speaker 3: the time I was home, I looked and saw that
24:22
Speaker 3: I had a message from Veronica. The message said, Why
24:25
Speaker 3: didn't you come to the food court entrance like I asked?
24:28
Speaker 1: Why did you just leave?
24:30
Speaker 3: By this time, I knew that Veronica likely didn't exist,
24:33
Speaker 3: and the one guy that I saw was running the account.
24:36
Speaker 3: I asked her to send me a picture of herself
24:38
Speaker 3: right now. Then, she blocked me. That pretty much confirmed
24:42
Speaker 3: my suspicions. I was disappointed, obviously, but I also felt
24:45
Speaker 3: good that I wasn't a victim to anything further than
24:48
Speaker 3: being catfished. From that point forward, I was much more
24:51
Speaker 3: careful with who I talked to online.
25:03
Speaker 4: A little while ago, I saw an ad on Facebook
25:05
Speaker 4: Marketplace where a woman claimed to be giving away free gerbils. Apparently,
25:09
Speaker 4: the boy-girl pair she owned had produced a huge litter
25:12
Speaker 4: of little gerbil babies, and since there was way too
25:15
Speaker 4: much for her to handle, she was just going to
25:17
Speaker 4: give them away to a handful of loving homes. The
25:21
Speaker 4: ad didn't include the grim little factoid that the gerbil
25:24
Speaker 4: mom would probably eat her babies if she didn't think
25:26
Speaker 4: she could take care of them, but I figured, so
25:29
Speaker 4: I got in touch. The woman turned out to be
25:32
Speaker 4: a widow who had originally bought the gerbils to keep
25:34
Speaker 4: her company. I did think it was kind of unusual
25:37
Speaker 4: that she didn't just get herself a cat or dog
25:40
Speaker 4: if loneliness was the issue, but hey, different strokes for
25:43
Speaker 4: different folks, right? I'm not one to judge. And she
25:47
Speaker 4: seemed so sweet when I called her to arrange a
25:50
Speaker 4: date and time to go pick up two of the gerbils.
25:53
Speaker 4: Needless to say, I did not expect her to be
25:55
Speaker 4: living in the conditions she was. because when me and
25:58
Speaker 4: my dad arrived at her home with the little straw
26:01
Speaker 4: bedded cage to take the gerbils home in, the whole
26:04
Speaker 4: exchange took a turn for the worse. So we called
26:08
Speaker 4: over at the gerbil lady's place, and at first there
26:10
Speaker 4: was no reply. Then when she finally answers the door
26:14
Speaker 4: we can see she's in quite a sorry state. One
26:17
Speaker 4: of her eyes is swollen and bloodshot, with some super
26:21
Speaker 4: gross looking yellow gunk collecting in the corner of the eye.
26:24
Speaker 4: But we remain polite and just ignore it. The last
26:27
Speaker 4: thing me and dad wanted to do was offend or
26:30
Speaker 4: upset the lady by pointing out what was an already
26:33
Speaker 4: obvious medical condition. But when she invites us inside, we
26:37
Speaker 4: get a clue as to how she got sick in
26:39
Speaker 4: the first place. Her little house reeked like it was
26:43
Speaker 4: the single worst stench that ever graced my nostrils, and
26:47
Speaker 4: there were gerbils everywhere. And I mean everywhere. And much
26:52
Speaker 4: like their owner, they were not in good condition. Just
26:57
Speaker 4: from the gerbils that were skittering around the kitchen I
26:59
Speaker 4: could see that many of them were missing fur and
27:02
Speaker 4: patches or had painful looking growths around their legs or backs.
27:07
Speaker 4: Then when she invited us into her TV room for
27:09
Speaker 4: a cup of tea we could see it was even
27:12
Speaker 4: worse in there. We had to make up some excuse
27:14
Speaker 4: about how we couldn't stay for long after me and
27:16
Speaker 4: my dad shot each other a telepathic look that basically
27:20
Speaker 4: said a giant nope. And with the amount of gerbil
27:24
Speaker 4: poop that clogged up every little corner and skirting board
27:27
Speaker 4: it was absolutely no wonder that she had some kind
27:30
Speaker 4: of infection. And when I caught sight of an actual
27:33
Speaker 4: tiny rodent skeleton behind one of her curtains, I went
27:37
Speaker 4: into full improv mode to get us out of there.
27:40
Speaker 4: I turned to my dad, named some piece of important
27:42
Speaker 4: gerbil habitat that we hadn't picked up from the store yet,
27:46
Speaker 4: wink wink, but then agreed that, oh, we can't possibly
27:50
Speaker 4: bring home the gerbils without insert name of doodad here
27:53
Speaker 4: and we'll have to call by again in a couple
27:55
Speaker 4: of days. I remember us both sitting in the car afterward,
28:00
Speaker 4: just kind of in shock at what we'd just seen.
28:03
Speaker 4: The fact that someone could live like that was just
28:05
Speaker 4: depressing and terrifying to me. She obviously had no one
28:09
Speaker 4: coming to check on her, and anyone who thought it
28:12
Speaker 4: was okay to keep a home like that must have
28:15
Speaker 4: been losing their marbles. It sucked having to make a
28:18
Speaker 4: decision like we did. I felt really mean basically snitching,
28:22
Speaker 4: but we just had to call animal rescue for her
28:25
Speaker 4: benefit more than anything else. The ASPCA rep we spoke
28:30
Speaker 4: to said that they'd investigate and let us know what
28:33
Speaker 4: their call was going to be, and in the end,
28:36
Speaker 4: they got back in touch, thanking us for the tip.
28:39
Speaker 4: Not only was the gerbil lady now in touch with
28:41
Speaker 4: a local charity that would help check up on her
28:43
Speaker 4: in her twilight years, but her house was considerably cleaner
28:47
Speaker 4: and safer after they've cleared out almost a hundred gerbils
28:50
Speaker 4: from her property. They said the situation was so bad
28:54
Speaker 4: that the only thing that kept the infestation from spreading...
28:57
Speaker 4: with the neighborhood cats. I did remember seeing a bunch
29:01
Speaker 4: of strays hanging around outside, but I figured it was
29:04
Speaker 4: just because she was the local animal lover who would
29:07
Speaker 4: routinely feed them treats or whatever. Turns out she was
29:11
Speaker 4: breeding treats for them, just not in the way she
29:14
Speaker 4: might like to think. The creepiest thing about it was that,
29:18
Speaker 4: from standing outside her home, you'd never have guessed at
29:21
Speaker 4: the horror show waiting for you on the inside. And
29:24
Speaker 4: the whole thing just reminds me that We don't really
29:27
Speaker 4: know what's going on behind closed doors, even the ones
29:30
Speaker 4: closest to us. Behind the facade of normalcy, we have
29:35
Speaker 4: no idea what our friends and neighbors are up to,
29:37
Speaker 4: or what nightmarish conditions. they're living under.