I'm sorry Imgur. We were taken advantage of.

This is where it all began.

About a month ago, I saw an image from an Imgurian who was about to be evicted because he was 27 dollars short on his rent. I felt the need to intervene, and sent him the 30 dollars over Paypal. This resulted in a huge outpouring of love from Imgur, which filled my heart with happiness and made me proud to be a member of this community.

Unfortunately, I now have evidence that I was taken advantage of and the whole thing was a hoax.

This is an image posted today by a person claiming to be the mother of a little boy with leukemia. She asked for donations to her paypal account to help pay for his medical bills. One Imgurian (who shall remain nameless unless he wishes to out himself in the comments) noticed that his (large) donation went to the same paypal account that my 30 dollar donation went to a month ago. This account was named Jakinc. I had sent my donation to one e-mail address, but apparently many e-mail addresses can be linked to one paypal account.

This is the screenshot that the Batman-like Imgurian sent me. It shows that his donation (using a different e-mail address) ended up in the same paypal account as the 30 dollar donation I had sent a month ago. This sent me off to investigate whether or not I had been scammed.

I have spent hours tonight trying to figure out whether the person I had sent money to was really a person in need, or just a person trying to scam Imgurians out of their money. I honestly wasn't sure. I was hearing two different stories from the two people I was questioning about this. I didn't know who to believe.

Until I saw a third party had donated to the same hopeforbodhi campaign. Again, they shall remain nameless unless they choose to out themselves in the comments. That third party sent me a screen shot of their donation, which shows that their 10 dollars, which was sent to "[email protected]", ended up in the "Jakinc" paypal account.

That was the clincher. There were many e-mail accounts linked to the Paypal account, but at this point it was impossible to ignore the fact that I had sent 30 dollars to the same person that these two people had sent money to. We had all been taken advantage of.

I want to apologize to you, Imgur. I promise you that I did not know this was a scam at the time. I honestly thought I was helping a fellow Imgurian. I was taken advantage of just as much as you were. I don't want anyone to feel like they gave me upvotes or messages of support under false pretenses, and I want you to know that if you remove your upvotes from my account (or even downvote me) I will not complain or hold any ill will towards you.

I was just trying to do the right thing. I am also trying to do the right thing tonight, by making this album and posting these images to show you the evidence that I have. Please feel free to message me or comment on this post with any questions you may have, although I may take a while to respond.

Once again, I am sorry. While I had no part in this scam, I still feel partially to blame for having received so much love and support from this community based on false pretenses. I should have been able to spot the fraud before it became a big deal. I should have investigated before I sent that money. I should have figured this out sooner. I should have done a lot of things.

I'm sorry.