A woman has been catfished by someone impersonating Bee Gees’ legend Barry Gibb, and scammed out of thousands of dollars from her retirement fund, as well as money donated by the musician’s fans.
Catfished just shared the story on their YouTube channel yesterday (Oct. 4). The woman, whose name is Wanda, believed that she was in an online relationship with Gibb for some time. Wanda claims she went on one of Gibb’s web pages one day and clicked on a button that gave her the option to message him.
They began exchanging messages, and Wanda admitted she didn’t believe it was him at first. The individual acting as Gibb declined her request for a video chat, and said that he’d been blackmailed by a fan once after speaking with them through video.
“Then it started getting really intimate, and we started really chatting and talking about visiting and stuff like that,” Wanda explained, adding that she’d never been charmed by someone that way before, and that his messages started to get more sexual over time.
Wanda was aware that Gibb was married, and upon searching, discovered that he was still with his wife, Linda Gray. The couple married in 1970 and have five children together, as well as seven grandchildren. But, Wanda said that the Gibb impersonator told her he was going to leave his wife for her, and convinced her to start looking for a house for them to move into together in Oregon.
The person pretending to be Gibb introduced Wanda to their friend Aaron Williams, who was apparently a realtor, and sent him a total of $11,000 from her retirement fund to pay for the house that she thought she was going to live in with Gibb.
As time went on, the impersonator made several excuses as to why they couldn’t meet Wanda in person yet, including that they didn’t have access to their money and they didn’t want people to know about it. Thus, they had fans make donations to an account that Wanda was then able to transfer back to them through MoneyGram and PayPal. She forwarded a total of $20,000 to the fake Gibb, which they told her was going to help get through the divorce.
“He ended up signing a contract to do a commercial, but the commercial never came out. I guess he passed out during the commercial and ended up in the hospital,” Wanda continued, recalling several other incidents that happened afterward.
“Gibb” continued to put off doing any type of video call or voice call with Wanda, assuring her that they would be together soon in person. Yet, she held onto the belief that this person was Gibb because the relationship made her feel really good, and she had a “gut feeling” that it really was him.
Fortunately, Catfished was able to convince her to stop sending money to this person. The team reached out to the realtor that listed the house in Oregon that Wanda and Gibb were supposed to move into, and discovered that it was still on the market, and that no payments had been received.
Furthermore, a post on Gibb’s verified Facebook page, which was written by the musician’s son Stephen, warned that there had been other accounts impersonating his father.
“I am posting on his behalf today as it seems there are several profiles pretending to be Dad on Facebook and other social media platforms. Please report and block these scam artists to the platform,” the post read.
The Catfished team then showed Wanda recent footage of Gibb and his wife that proved they are still married. Wanda was evidently disappointed by the conclusion.
Poor Wanda.
See the full episode below.
