A Personal Message from Mark Riedy, PhD,
San Diego Oasis Advisory Board Member
Preamble: This story about being scammed is the most difficult piece I have ever written. So much so that on the strenuous advice of my family, in mid-May I decided for privacy and personal reasons against publishing it. Yet here you are, reading the story, so something changed. What changed is that on June 9, a dear friend from North Carolina called to say a close friend of hers in Orange County, CA, had just received a call from her grandson. Distraught and in tears, he was calling her from the county jail. He sounded different from normal, but that was explained by the broken nose he sustained in the auto accident he caused while drinking. As a result, he had gotten a DUI citation and spent the night in jail. He desperately needed her help. That was as far as her grandson got before she ended the call.
