The last thing a bride anticipates on her wedding day is learning that her maid-of-honor, and longtime best friend, had been scamming her family out of money for decades. Sadly, that was the very reality for one bride, and the terrible wedding-day discovery that seriously put a damper on her special moment.
The bride believed that her maid of honor and the other members of her wedding party were practically family. Instead, she’s now editing members of her wedding party out of her wedding pictures and accepting the fact that her best friend of 17 years was not who she claimed to be. Jubilee Dawn took to TikTok to share the shocking story of betrayal she discovered that all centered on her supposed best friend.
“On the wedding day, she ended up coming up to me, telling me that we ran out of alcohol, and she said that her husband needed to go get more alcohol to keep the party going because it was on New Year’s Eve,” she shared.
Dawn thought this was a perfectly reasonable request and promised to pay Crystal and her husband back for the purchase. On her flight to her honeymoon, Crystal sent Dawn a text saying she needed to Venmo her husband $370 for the alcohol. Dawn admitted that that amount was “more than I was expecting,” but she trusted Crystal, so she sent the money.
“So, flash forward a bit,” Dawn continued. “I had a family member named Susan, and I was helping with her finances a bit.” Susan had dementia, so she needed some assistance handling her money. And, it turns out, it’s a good thing that Dawn was taking a look. She found that Crystal, who was also close with Susan and actually living with her to help care for her, had also charged the alcohol to Susan’s credit card and written a $500 check to herself, also for the alcohol.
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Dawn continued reviewing Susan’s finances and found “a lot of fishy stuff” involving Crystal. Sometime from 2017 to 2019, Dawn said that “Crystal had gotten in trouble for taking/using around $300,000 of Susan’s money.” Dawn realized this was a pattern of financial and elder abuse coming from Crystal.
But perhaps the strangest thing was that people were encouraging her to just move on. “There was a lot going on because Crystal ended up separating from her husband,” she said. “And people started to shame me because they are Christian, and they were saying that you just need to let this go.”
Some of the people insisting that Dawn just make peace with Crystal were actually in her bridal party, and did so out of some extreme “loyalty” to Crystal. This explained why she is no longer talking to half of her wedding party.
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According to the FBI, elder fraud is growing increasingly common. Some scammers have a sophisticated setup and are able to pose as a government official to get money. Another common scam is called the “family/caregiver scam.” The FBI described this as a family member or friend stealing money from the elderly person. The elderly are often targeted because they are easily trusting and typically have a healthy amount of money saved.
Ivan S | Pexels
In this situation, Crystal not only took advantage of Susan and her declining health but also likely took advantage of her friendship with Dawn to get closer to Susan. This story is one of many examples of why you have to be very careful about who you are willing to trust, especially when it comes to money.
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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
