Epic Sh*tstain Posing as Ritchie Blackmore Scammed a Dying Elderly Woman Out of £140K
I fucking hate writing about old people getting scammed. It’s even worse when they’re terminally ill, so this story’s a double whammy. Why would I be writing about this on a metal site, you ask? Well it’s because the cosmic shitstain that did this pretended he was former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore.
According to a report in The Sun, 81-year-old Valerie Horwood was scammed out of £140,000 after the aforementioned fuck-knuckle messaged her on Facebook claiming to be the guitarist. Somehow, they got Horwood to go to the store and buy a ridiculous amount of Apple gift cards. Apparently, fake Ritchie Blackmore said she’d get her money back and then some.
As is common in stories like this, the scammer demanded the woman remain quiet about the interaction because he was a celebrity and didn’t want the negative press. Unfortunately, the damage was done by the time Horwood asked her family for £2,000 to pay her bills.
Horwood’s daughter Debbie said she was shocked to see that her mother’s bank account was wiped clean when she looked into why she was asking for help.
“[Valerie Horwood] was pulled into a false sense of security thinking she had this really good friend who was a famous person. She really did not believe us when we told her that it was a scam. Her world just completely fell apart. She couldn’t comprehend what had happened. It is a hard thing to take on that you have just given all of your money away to a scammer. It is a very crafty scam. I have been through the worst emotional rollercoaster with it all.”
In total, the scam spanned three years, with the fraudulent waste of semen reaching out for more money to Valerie on a communication app called Signal and then on WhatsApp. Things got so bad that the elderly woman, who already has terminal cancer, attempted suicide as a result of being taken for a ride.
Valerie now lives with her daughter, but she doesn’t have funds to do things in her final days. Ever since the loss of money, Debbie managed to recover £12,500 from one of the stores her mom bought the gift cards, with hopes that they’ll be able to get more back over time.
“We are fighting for justice for my mum and to recoup her money so that she can decide what she wants to do with it in her time left.
“My mum may need to go to a nursing home soon, and that’s what she could be using her money for. Not for some scammers to go and buy a Rolex watch or a smart car.”
If you’re the scumbag that did this, I hope everything in life goes wrong for you. Just… fuck, man.
