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Fake Promises Of Surgery Piss Me Off
Written by Sean on Monday, January 5, 2009
A couple weeks ago on a Yahoo! mailing list, a post came through, offering a "surgical solution" for BIID. An email address was given, and people interested in getting surgery invited to contact the person. I exchanged several emails with this person. My latest email has gone unanswered. I believe this is a fake offer. I may be wrong, and would love to be proven wrong, but until such time, I will warn people not to fall into that trap.
Every few months, there’s some people who email or post, saying they can provide surgery to help with our BIID. This seems to happen particularly around Christmas/New Year. Almost inevitably, this person has never been heard of in the BIID "community". They provide sketchy details, if any at all. When asked for further information, they are evasive, or tell you things that are innacurate, or unsupportable.
Around Christmas, a guy named Simon emailed the Fighting-It mailing list on Yahoo! He wrote:
I’m psychologist in a project for BIID patients. Anyone who has made up his mind and wants to speek with me, in order to be approved for a surgical solution, feel free to contact me
Then he gave his email address.
Obviously, I emailed him within minutes of getting the list mail. I asked for more details about his project, which I had assumed to be a study. I asked him what questions he had for me, and I pointed him to my websites.
He responded quite quickly. He said that having read the websites, he didn’t have any questions and was comfortable in the knowledge that I really had BIID. In other words, "no questions asked". He explained that it is not a study, it is actually offering surgeries. He pointed out that in view of the backlash Dr. Smith experienced and the negative views of such surgeries, things had to be kept quite confidential. For that reason, he wasn’t giving much information. He did say that the surgeons were willing to do either amputations or paralysis, in an South East Asian hospital with US and European standards.
I wrote back, pointing out that I needed more information to be able to build trust. For all I know, this could be a con to steal my kidneys. He argued that it was not in his interest, nor that of the project to do such things.
He did give me some more details, but as he asked me to keep this information confidential, I will not post it here. What I am writing in this post is not identifiable enough to breach confidentiality.
I asked about cost, and it was quite reasonable, although significant. Cost includes some weeks stay in hospital. I asked if I could bring someone with me, particularly in the operating theater. I was told that this would not be appropriate. I was supposed to just get myself to the country in question, where I’d be given a cellphone number to ring, and the rest would happen.
So, in other words, it was "Please show up alone in a foreign country with a suitcase full of cash. Trust me…" Anyone else sees the problem here?
When I pressed for more details, this guy got evasive. When I pressed further, he stopped emailing back.
I don’t know what they are playing at. I don’t know what the motivation is. But it seriously angers me. It can’t be a con where they are hoping to get money. Surely they don’t expect anyone, as desperate as we are, to actually show up with tens of thousands of dollars? Some guy claimed to be an intermediary and asked for a few hundreds to connect people, that I can see people buying and getting conned, but not this thing. So what is in it for them?
What kind of idiot gets off on the misery of others? I don’t know. I don’t know.
I contacted this guy, like the others, not holding my breath, assuming "guilty ’till proven innocent", because I’ve encountered too many people trying to pull a fast one over me. I think the proverb says "once bitten, twice shy". The French say "chat échaudé craint l’eau froide".
If I am misjudging him, or others like him, I sincerely apologise. I would like nothing more than to be proven wrong. I wish these schemes were for real, because I, and so many of us, need this blackmarket surgery, since mainstream medical care won’t help us. But until, and unless, they give me enough credible and verifiable information, I’m not going there.
I urge everyone else to be extremely cautious as well.
Have you been in contact with people offering these kind of things? Did you get a good vibe? Did you actually go through and was the offer legitimate? Please share your experiences!
Tags: Amputation, Con, Paralysis, Surgery
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7 Comments
2 On 5 January, 2009, Sean said:
Blacklist is not a bad idea at all, actually. Thank you ahab!
Sean, of course I followed up this too. I cannot tell if they are really able to offer what they say they can. They are very concerned about maintaining their own safety, but what about ours? I am withholding judgement and trying to find out more.
- Dan
4 On 5 January, 2009, Sean said:
Hey Dan, please keep us informed if it turns out to be a legitimate offer.
I had kept this email on hold (as unread) hoping to get some feedback to Dan’s reply to him. So thanks for enlightening us here.
Peter
If it is too good to be true, then in it likely is.
Also, be aware of scams asking for help getting money out of Nigeria.
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1 On 5 January, 2009, ahab said:
Sean, you should make a list of these fakers. Collect their email addresses and make them available to others, so they can verify if the person is on your watchlist. You should establish a black list for such frauders.