Beware of Scams!

Heads up! Someone has impersonated my father Peter on Facebook. Please do not accept any friend requests from someone claiming to be him. My dad doesn't use social media much and has a private account with only close relatives and friends. 

Unfortunately, it is very common for scammers to target people with severe illness, especially diseases like MECFS. Due to the prevalence of cognitive dysfunction people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis aka ME are particularly vulnerable to scams. I believe the scam here works something like this: find a severely ill patient with social media presence, impersonate a family member with little social media presence, and then tell people they need money to help their sick loved one. 

I am very privileged that my family does not have to ask anyone for money. If anyone in my family appears to be doing this it is almost certainly as scam as described above. But scams like this are extremely harmful to the patients who really do need their friends' and families' monetary support. They erode trust in people asking for help in legitimate emergencies. They don't just steal money, they steal it away from the people who need it most. 

Be careful and don't give your money to scammers! But don't let scams stop you from helping people. If you have money to give donate it to a charity that will help all of us like The Open Medicine Foundation @openmedf or ME Action @meactnet. If you want to help people with ME who are in real financial emergencies support the AMMES Financial Crisis Fund. If you want to support mutual aid do some research first on how to spot scams or give through a project like @spoonieuniproject 

https://ammes.org/ammes-financial-crisis-fund/#:~:text=The%20AMMES%20financial%20crisis%20fund,is%20vital%20to%20well%2Dbeing.

https://www.omf.ngo/?form=donatenow