[SERIOUS REPLIES ONLY]
(I recorded this on voice and it came out like this, apologies for any incoherence or so)
Here we go, this is a doozy... My cousin called me. Let's call her May. She's... Highly intelligent And I think she genuinely has two master's degrees. One in geography and the other in, I don't remember. She's Polish. She grew up in Poland. And like, she was a fantastic girl. She is a fantastic girl. She studied in Sweden, she studied everywhere, and she ended up as a bank director, and then she quit her job because she got burnt out. And for the past three and a half years, she has been living with her mom and her stepdad in Poland in a little, like, in a house out in the countryside in Poland, okay? And here's the thing.
Our family history is kind of complicated, and, you know, I live elsewhere so we meet very, very rarely. And we're getting on in age, you know, And she's always been a very sharp kid, and she reached out to me today. I haven't spoken to her in at least a year and a half or something like that. That's about the, that's about as often as we contact each other or communicate. It used to be more, but she's just grown more distant. And she works from home 100% of the time. She has two cats. She lives with her stepdad, who is an asshole, and her mom, who is very happy to have her there. Okay.
And so here is the story. Like, she's seen normal and all, and we just chatted and reminisced. She talks about like she's a sailor, she's a captain (for real), she's like the captain of, she sails regattas and shit. And she keeps fit, like really fit. And all is going good and well. And out of the blue, she said like, yeah, I remember that you told me you had Lyme disease, which I have had, and I have still, and have had many times, and it will never go away because you need like antibiotics or whatever the fuck. And she said, like, yeah, I did that too, and I felt like shit, and I had no energy. But then I met this, and get this, she met a natural, natural therapist. I think she's, she calls him a natural therapist. Yeah? All right, you follow?
And she starts telling me that since she went to this natural homeopathy or whatever the fuck, it's not homeopathy, he calls him a naturopath, I suppose, or something like that. I have a link actually. Some guy who claims he is a neurologist from Ukraine, but he can't practice neurology (for some reason), so now he does this. And she has, she bought, she bought a machine from him that she sits with for an hour every day for a year and a half now. And I asked, how much, how much is this machine? And it's like a thousand dollars.
Wow. Ok. And what does this machine do exactly? I ask. And she says, yeah, it emits electromagnetic waves or some shit. (ofcourse.jpg) And she had a little trouble explaining it, like how it works, how it actually works, there's frequencies involved. every human has a frequency. And I asked, what frequency is Lyme disease? And she... moved on. And I asked her, maybe you can send me the manual for the machine. Can you send me, like, what is the model number and the number and the serial number? I'll go online. I just wanna check it out because it maybe can help me, wink wink, you know what the fuck I mean. And I'm getting such fucking bad vibes from this, and it's obvious from the second she mentioned it. It's a fucking scam. It's such a fucking massive scam. She's just been, you know, and she says like she feels perfect and she's so happy and has so much energy and she's been doing this for a year and a half, for an hour every day. And like, it's so fucking weird seeing it because this is a rational, intelligent woman who I know studied a lot and read a lot, been through a lot. And she knows me, she knows I'm from an academic, intellectual family, and we are also Polaks, so we question everything, literally everything.
And I laughed at her in the beginning. I just like, like a cordial, very friendly laugh. Like, are you fucking serious about this shit? Like, are you being serious right now? You must have an idea of what I'm going to say to this, right? seriously? But she kept, she was adamant, and she said I should book an appointment. And I said, sure! I will do that. I wanna book an appointment with this guy, cost me like 20 bucks or something, in Warsaw. And I said, yeah, okay, we'll go there together, you and I together, and we'll talk to the guy. I will gladly pay. I will take the flight over to Warsaw, no problem, and I will. I'll get that done. And we'll go talk to this guy together. Is that okay? And she's like, oh yeah, sure, maybe, um, you just have to check his schedule. And she was so avoidant about the whole fucking thing. Everything I asked about, i mean if she was trying to sell me on this thing, I was telling her straight up I was buying it. You know what I mean? Like sure, let's try this! I'm game! No notes! This woman has been a bank director for a major bank with many branches all over the world, like, she, she's not a dumb chicken.
And fairly early on in the conversation, I started recording it, because I wanted to check out all of her claims so I could remember everything and keep receipts (only for personal use and transcription- yes that is technically immoral but in this case I seriously just act as a cop), learn exactly who this guy is, where he works, what is what. I can do some background check on this dude. And because it's like, it's such an obvious scam, and he has obviously got her on the hook, and he obviously is milking her for money. It's like a textbook scam, and it is just insane to me how some people fall for that. But that has also happened with another cousin of mine, who got involved in a multi-level marketing scheme without knowing. Poland is still very much behind the times, and will always stay behind the times because of what they went through, you know, for many, many centuries or whatever.
So anyway, I like, I just played along. I just pretended to be super interested and just ask her as many questions as I could and just, you know, prodded and poked. And I am very, very worried. I'm seriously worried about her. Something is, like, this is nuts. This is nuts. What do you do? I don't know what to do. What do I do if I have a family member who gets caught up in an MLM scheme? What would one do? What can one do? How do I approach this? I got the facts, I got the recordings, and I'm gonna, like, just check everything she says. I'm gonna check out who this guy is, how, I'm gonna fucking find out everything about this. And then I need, once I have the information to act upon, I need to know how to act. And I need to know what to do now. Right now, shit is like the way it is, I'm not gonna touch it. I'm gonna prepare very carefully, tactically, strategically, to reach her. Because I know, I could tell, she had that glazed over eyes like she joined a cult or something. And she believes in this shit, it helps her find, she said that she's feeling great and she has lots of energy, she's doing shit. Good, I'm not gonna mess with that. But she is being rused, bamboozled, fucking tricked and scammed. She is being conned, and it's my responsibility and my duty as her family to do something about it.
And this is my conundrum. I need help. What the fuck do I do?
