Iowa woman scams OH.com
Here's a newspaper article from yesterday's Keokuk Gate City daily. All the sordid details can be read in the hundred or so Cheri threads over in the OH R&R forum which is where the scam took place. Pretty amazing story to say the least. One lady in the R&R forum lost over $2000. Ouch!!
Keokuk Police Chief Tom Crew described a scam that began with local residents responding to a blogger on obesityhelp.com, an online weightloss surgery support group.
A woman had been online for awhile and had established herself as a likable and kind person who wrote about her breast cancer, Crew said. The woman's world was falling apart. Her husband was overseas, she had just had a baby and was undergoing radiation and therapy for breast cancer.
“From Georgia to the Midwest, it started with emotional support for this woman, and eventually grew to money and gifts,” Crew said.
Local residents didn't have the money to send, but tried to go to Coralville and give physical help, like cleaning the breast cancer victim's home and providing care.
But the first time they went, the woman, known as Cheri Wycoff, was not there. She later said she had collapsed in the kitchen that day and had to get medical help.
The second time local people tried to help, they were told her husband had come home and was helping out.
On Oct. 24, anonymous postings on the obesityhelp.com Web site said Wycoff was running a scam.
“The people here who had been in contact with her, didn't want to believe it,” Crew said. “When she was hurting, they would hurt along with her. When she was in pain, they were in pain.”
The local folks made another trip to Wycoff's home in Coralville to see if she was scamming them. They knocked repeatedly on the door, heard someone inside, but no one came to the door.
The group obtained a phone number to Wycoff's home from a support group member and called her.
“The people confronted her on the phone and she said she couldn't come to the door,” Crew said. “They told her they believed she was scamming people and questioned if she had ever had a child.”
Wycoff said she would meet them at the Keokuk Public Library on Oct. 29 and prove her claims.
In the meantime, Keokuk police officers found an outstanding Des Moines warrant on one of Wycoff's aliases, Cheri Lynn Sells, for identity theft. Wycoff also was known as Cheri McClellen and Cheri Bush.
The police waited for Wycoff at the library, but she showed up at the local resident's home instead. That person alerted the police; they drove there.
“She was dressed in a winter coat and had a doo-rag (bandana) around her head,” Crew said.
Officers ran Wycoff's plates and identified the car as belonging to her and her husband. She had an eight-month-old baby fastened in a car seat in her back seat.
“One of the officers saw hair coming out from under her bandana, but she said her hair was growing in after treatment,” Crew said. “She had a scar showing just above her ribcage and said she had a pain pump.”
At the police station, Wycoff asked an officer to help get her baby out of the car. As the officer reached in the back seat to unfasten the baby, Wycoff took off on foot. The officer had to get someone to stay with the baby before he could pursue her. Wycoff had disappeared.
The police started searching the streets for a 40-year-old woman, white, 5-feet 5-inches tall, 135-pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes.
“A plainclothes officer found her at 4:56 p.m. in the 1000 block of High Street wearing different clothing and with long straight hair,” Crew said. “He chased her and had to tackle her. She definitely didn't want to get arrested.”
Wycoff aka Bush, Sells or McClellen was taken directly to Keokuk Area Hospital complaining about medical issues, among them a claim that her pain pump was leaking.
At the hospital, doctors said she had bound her breasts, and a pain pump was not installed.
Officers traced Wycoff's route from the police department and found in a trash can, a bandana, part of Wycoff's costume, a latex skullcap of the type worn by actors and a plastic scar.
Crew said that when Wycoff was told she could be charged with abandoning her child, she said, “My child was never in danger. He was with the best people he could be with - the police.”
Investigators searched her car and found key chains and items from breast cancer facilities and breast cancer awareness places, extra latex skull caps and glue, Crew said.
“This woman had gone to an extreme effort to look like a breast cancer survivor,” Crew said.
Since her arrest, the Coralville police have been deluged with calls from people who say they were scammed, Crew said. The support group Web site began carrying the post that the Coralville PD would respond to e-mails, and to stop calling.
Although Keokuk area people who were taken in by Wycoff did not have their wallets touched, their hearts had been involved.
“They were affected not monetarily, but because they cared,” Crew said. “The Internet opens a whole world of victims to scammers.
“People will make pleas for sympathy and Americans answer those pleas. They have the best intentions, but they end up being taken. Then they feel betrayed because they have been betrayed. Be aware and check out things thoroughly.
“I'm hoping this will put an end to this scam. People who are going through a support group like this are often people who have had cancer and are already suffering. Someone willing to prey on them is just appalling to me.”
The investigation into Wycoff's actions by other police departments is still ongoing, Crew said.
Keokuk police foil alleged breast cancer survivor scam
By Cindy Iutzi/Gate City Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, November 5, 2008 4:48 PM CST The golden age of the Internet is being tarnished by people who use the wireless medium to reach out and scam someone.Keokuk Police Chief Tom Crew described a scam that began with local residents responding to a blogger on obesityhelp.com, an online weightloss surgery support group.
A woman had been online for awhile and had established herself as a likable and kind person who wrote about her breast cancer, Crew said. The woman's world was falling apart. Her husband was overseas, she had just had a baby and was undergoing radiation and therapy for breast cancer.
“From Georgia to the Midwest, it started with emotional support for this woman, and eventually grew to money and gifts,” Crew said.
Local residents didn't have the money to send, but tried to go to Coralville and give physical help, like cleaning the breast cancer victim's home and providing care.
But the first time they went, the woman, known as Cheri Wycoff, was not there. She later said she had collapsed in the kitchen that day and had to get medical help.
The second time local people tried to help, they were told her husband had come home and was helping out.
On Oct. 24, anonymous postings on the obesityhelp.com Web site said Wycoff was running a scam.
“The people here who had been in contact with her, didn't want to believe it,” Crew said. “When she was hurting, they would hurt along with her. When she was in pain, they were in pain.”
The local folks made another trip to Wycoff's home in Coralville to see if she was scamming them. They knocked repeatedly on the door, heard someone inside, but no one came to the door.
The group obtained a phone number to Wycoff's home from a support group member and called her.
“The people confronted her on the phone and she said she couldn't come to the door,” Crew said. “They told her they believed she was scamming people and questioned if she had ever had a child.”
Wycoff said she would meet them at the Keokuk Public Library on Oct. 29 and prove her claims.
In the meantime, Keokuk police officers found an outstanding Des Moines warrant on one of Wycoff's aliases, Cheri Lynn Sells, for identity theft. Wycoff also was known as Cheri McClellen and Cheri Bush.
The police waited for Wycoff at the library, but she showed up at the local resident's home instead. That person alerted the police; they drove there.
“She was dressed in a winter coat and had a doo-rag (bandana) around her head,” Crew said.
Officers ran Wycoff's plates and identified the car as belonging to her and her husband. She had an eight-month-old baby fastened in a car seat in her back seat.
“One of the officers saw hair coming out from under her bandana, but she said her hair was growing in after treatment,” Crew said. “She had a scar showing just above her ribcage and said she had a pain pump.”
At the police station, Wycoff asked an officer to help get her baby out of the car. As the officer reached in the back seat to unfasten the baby, Wycoff took off on foot. The officer had to get someone to stay with the baby before he could pursue her. Wycoff had disappeared.
The police started searching the streets for a 40-year-old woman, white, 5-feet 5-inches tall, 135-pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes.
“A plainclothes officer found her at 4:56 p.m. in the 1000 block of High Street wearing different clothing and with long straight hair,” Crew said. “He chased her and had to tackle her. She definitely didn't want to get arrested.”
Wycoff aka Bush, Sells or McClellen was taken directly to Keokuk Area Hospital complaining about medical issues, among them a claim that her pain pump was leaking.
At the hospital, doctors said she had bound her breasts, and a pain pump was not installed.
Officers traced Wycoff's route from the police department and found in a trash can, a bandana, part of Wycoff's costume, a latex skullcap of the type worn by actors and a plastic scar.
Crew said that when Wycoff was told she could be charged with abandoning her child, she said, “My child was never in danger. He was with the best people he could be with - the police.”
Investigators searched her car and found key chains and items from breast cancer facilities and breast cancer awareness places, extra latex skull caps and glue, Crew said.
“This woman had gone to an extreme effort to look like a breast cancer survivor,” Crew said.
Since her arrest, the Coralville police have been deluged with calls from people who say they were scammed, Crew said. The support group Web site began carrying the post that the Coralville PD would respond to e-mails, and to stop calling.
Although Keokuk area people who were taken in by Wycoff did not have their wallets touched, their hearts had been involved.
“They were affected not monetarily, but because they cared,” Crew said. “The Internet opens a whole world of victims to scammers.
“People will make pleas for sympathy and Americans answer those pleas. They have the best intentions, but they end up being taken. Then they feel betrayed because they have been betrayed. Be aware and check out things thoroughly.
“I'm hoping this will put an end to this scam. People who are going through a support group like this are often people who have had cancer and are already suffering. Someone willing to prey on them is just appalling to me.”
The investigation into Wycoff's actions by other police departments is still ongoing, Crew said.
Holy crap! People like that make me sick! I feel for those that were scammed. Cancer of any kind is horrible. My mother-in-law died a painful death from breast cancer and my father-in-law fought cancer for 10 years and succumbed to it last October. Anyone who would scam others and on top of that use cancer as a front are a shame to the human race.
I spit in her face.
I spit in her face.
Yeah it's ridiculous what she did. And the bad thing is some of the board members were skeptical because they saw through her stupidity in her posts and then others were just too kind to the *****see how you have to take EVERYONE'S problems with a grain of salt? You never know anybody over the internet. I could really be a 37 year old transsexual named Glenda Belle about to start my one-woman show travelling around the nation and just like to get off on reading obesityhelp forums! You just never know about people.
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