Advertisements
Originally Posted By BillMy wife and I were scammed by a lady in the Atlanta area in the spring of 2000. I feel like its my personal mission to get the word out on this lady who claimed to be a Christian and claimed to be working in prison ministry helping arrange adoptions for women in prison. Her name is Cheryl Kinney and she supposedly lives in Dacula, Georgia. She strung my wife and I along (as well as another couple) for about 2 months with the promise of a baby that was to be born in March. ItҒs a very complicated story but it ended up falling apart when we caught her in several lies and checked up on some of the inconsistencies that we found in her stories. She operates under the private agency name Legacy Lighthouse. If anyone is contacted by this lady dont believe a word she tells you. Better yet, contact me by email. The state of Georgia is currently investigating her and trying to get this scam shut down.
Like
Share
Wish we had read this thread sooner, this just happened to us this week.678-666-4992 is the newest number and the new names are MacKenzie and Matt. Email address was bluemackenzie2@gmail.comShe is disturbingly convincing. She never asks for money, she just texts and calls and keeps you believing things are moving forward. She even spoke with our lawyer, gave full names, and seemed really on top of things. Only when she spoke to a local GA lawyer who knew the scam did she give it up and tell us she was backing out. She sent pictures of her and her boyfriend and her pregnant belly, stats from her doctor's appointments, the name of her delivery hospital, etc. Only odd thing for us was the due date didn't seem consistent (due very soon, but how soon), and her tone could vary wildly from immature kid to more mature adult. How sad that there are people like this out there. Be aware and trust the advice of your adoption professionals.
Advertisements
MacKenzie also reached out to me, we've been texting back and forth. Are you sure it's a scam?? ###Wish we had read this thread sooner, this just happened to us this week.678-666-4992 is the newest number and the new names are MacKenzie and Matt. Email address was bluemackenzie2@gmail.comShe is disturbingly convincing. She never asks for money, she just texts and calls and keeps you believing things are moving forward. She even spoke with our lawyer, gave full names, and seemed really on top of things. Only when she spoke to a local GA lawyer who knew the scam did she give it up and tell us she was backing out. She sent pictures of her and her boyfriend and her pregnant belly, stats from her doctor's appointments, the name of her delivery hospital, etc. Only odd thing for us was the due date didn't seem consistent (due very soon, but how soon), and her tone could vary wildly from immature kid to more mature adult. How sad that there are people like this out there. Be aware and trust the advice of your adoption professionals.[/quote]
Yes, I just found this post and am heartbroken. I have been talking to Mackenzie or whomever she is for about 2 weeks. You're right she never asks for money. But she also will never let you talk to Matt or her father. She says she's 15 and Matt is 17. Her full name supposedly is Mackenzie Skye Brown. She sounds very young. Says her mom committed suicide on Mother's Day. She's told me dad is James. She's been talking to me taking up vast quantities of time crying and just occupying time. I'm talking from probably July 15 2019 to now August 3, 2019. I've gotten the numbers bluemackenzie2@gmail.com, 678-666-4992 is Matt's supposed number though Matt never talks on it. Hers is 678-837-7747, and then today, she supposedly ended up at a homeless shelter--phone broken and called from a girl she met there 678-227-3527 who supposedly is pregnant too, but she couldn't tell me her name. She did tell me from the beginning that she has IED--and can get very angry and irrational when talking or texting.[/quote]
MacKenzie also reached out to me, we've been texting back and forth. Are you sure it's a scam?? ###Wish we had read this thread sooner, this just happened to us this week.678-666-4992 is the newest number and the new names are MacKenzie and Matt. Email address was bluemackenzie2@gmail.comShe is disturbingly convincing. She never asks for money, she just texts and calls and keeps you believing things are moving forward. She even spoke with our lawyer, gave full names, and seemed really on top of things. Only when she spoke to a local GA lawyer who knew the scam did she give it up and tell us she was backing out. She sent pictures of her and her boyfriend and her pregnant belly, stats from her doctor's appointments, the name of her delivery hospital, etc. Only odd thing for us was the due date didn't seem consistent (due very soon, but how soon), and her tone could vary wildly from immature kid to more mature adult. How sad that there are people like this out there. Be aware and trust the advice of your adoption professionals.
Hi all, please consult with your lawyers, but we stopped pursuing when the following happened:Our lawyer gave Mackenzie the number of a local lawyer in GA to possibly get set up as her own lawyer down there. This happened to be a lawyer who has been hearing of a very similar scam going on for quite a while in the area. Mackenzie called this lawyer, and when the lawyer asked a specific question to try to vet if her story added up, "what is the name of your doctor?" at the hospital name she had given us, Mackenzie hung up. When the lawyer tried to call her back, she had blocked her number. Mackenzie then texted us immediately, "good luck, we are backing out," and after that abrupt ending, we heard nothing more. Just before that, she had seemed completely on board with following through. So it ended for us at the moment when proof would have been required.We were talking to her from July 27th-July 31st. She had told us to get ready to go, she was 2CM dilated and 90% effaced, that she wanted to match up with us, she even wanted us in the delivery room for support, etc. It seemed very real, but once we read this thread, we questioned all of it.[/quote]
Yes, I just found this post and am heartbroken. I have been talking to Mackenzie or whomever she is for about 2 weeks. You're right she never asks for money. But she also will never let you talk to Matt or her father. She says she's 15 and Matt is 17. Her full name supposedly is Mackenzie Skye Brown. She sounds very young. Says her mom committed suicide on Mother's Day. She's told me dad is James. She's been talking to me taking up vast quantities of time crying and just occupying time. I'm talking from probably July 15 2019 to now August 3, 2019. I've gotten the numbers bluemackenzie2@gmail.com, 678-666-4992 is Matt's supposed number though Matt never talks on it. Hers is 678-837-7747, and then today, she supposedly ended up at a homeless shelter--phone broken and called from a girl she met there 678-227-3527 who supposedly is pregnant too, but she couldn't tell me her name. She did tell me from the beginning that she has IED--and can get very angry and irrational when talking or texting.
Yes, Mackenzie reached out to us today after we published our Adoptimist profile last night, which seemed a bit too good to be true. Some things certainly seemed a little suspicious, but I also believed that she was an overwhelmed 15yo about to go into labor and chalked most of it up to that. It wasn't until I decided to try to look her up online with her phone number that this popped up, and I'm so glad that we saved ourselves longer emotional turmoil and potentially spending money on adoption agency counseling services. Does anyone know what the end game of this is? Is it purely emotional scamming? I talked to Mackenzie a good amount on the phone today and sent text messages, though with a Google Voice number that I can get rid of or change.
Advertisements
It looks like Mackenzie is working her way through the online adoption community. My wife and I were contacted by her on Monday evening, 8/5/19. In her initial text, she said she was due in "about" 5 days. She said she was 15, her BF was 21 and they were being "forced" into this adoption.Now, my wife and I are in a little bit of a different situation because we have just recently been matched with a sibling group through our Home Study provider. We told Mackenzie that we weren't in a position to adopt her baby, but we really wanted to help her (especially because of her age and the word "forced"). My wife exchange texts and phone calls with Mackenzie over the next 24 hours, Mackenize's attitude would swing wildly. She would almost plead with us to adopt her baby, then within moments say we weren't deserving. She would cuss out my wife and call her terrible things especially when we would talk about getting our adoption attorney involved.I really believe she is solely looking to manipulate emotions. We decided to ignore her after all the verbal abuse. And only after doing a Google search on the phone number did I know for certain it was not a legit situation. Our profile had been placed on AdoptionForMyChild.com
Yes, Mackenzie reached out to us today after we published our Adoptimist profile last night, which seemed a bit too good to be true. Some things certainly seemed a little suspicious, but I also believed that she was an overwhelmed 15yo about to go into labor and chalked most of it up to that. It wasn't until I decided to try to look her up online with her phone number that this popped up, and I'm so glad that we saved ourselves longer emotional turmoil and potentially spending money on adoption agency counseling services. Does anyone know what the end game of this is? Is it purely emotional scamming? I talked to Mackenzie a good amount on the phone today and sent text messages, though with a Google Voice number that I can get rid of or change.
We had very similar experiences with Mackenzie. She found us through Adoption for my Child as well. We actually contacted the show Catfish and they are investigating this case. This girl needs to be stopped.
It looks like Mackenzie is working her way through the online adoption community. My wife and I were contacted by her on Monday evening, 8/5/19. In her initial text, she said she was due in "about" 5 days. She said she was 15, her BF was 21 and they were being "forced" into this adoption.Now, my wife and I are in a little bit of a different situation because we have just recently been matched with a sibling group through our Home Study provider. We told Mackenzie that we weren't in a position to adopt her baby, but we really wanted to help her (especially because of her age and the word "forced"). My wife exchange texts and phone calls with Mackenzie over the next 24 hours, Mackenize's attitude would swing wildly. She would almost plead with us to adopt her baby, then within moments say we weren't deserving. She would cuss out my wife and call her terrible things especially when we would talk about getting our adoption attorney involved.I really believe she is solely looking to manipulate emotions. We decided to ignore her after all the verbal abuse. And only after doing a Google search on the phone number did I know for certain it was not a legit situation. Our profile had been placed on AdoptionForMyChild.com
Last update on August 8, 7:14 am by Jennifer Horne.
Whoa, if this story ends up on Catfish, you have to post an update to the thread.
We had very similar experiences with Mackenzie. She found us through Adoption for my Child as well. We actually contacted the show Catfish and they are investigating this case. This girl needs to be stopped.
Hi everyone. I'm a journalist from the BBC and I've just done an article about this scammer, where I've tracked her down -I'd love everyone to read it and to let me know what you think!
Advertisements
Thank you, Naomi. We appreciate this story getting serious coverage and hope it will help other couples avoid the same heartache.If you have any updates on the situation in the future, we'd love to hear them. Thanks again.
Hi everyone. I'm a journalist from the BBC and I've just done an article about this scammer, where I've tracked her down -I'd love everyone to read it and to let me know what you think!
Hi everyone,Hopefully all that need to see this can and don't give Gabby any more fuel for her fire. Naomi did a great job on her piece. As you can see from my previous post (Erika Celeste), Gabby scammed me back in end of July beginning of August 2019. But it's not over. She's still working hard as ever. I'm a journalist working with Business Insider on an adoption beat. I did a story in Dec. on Georgia Tann and the Tennessee Children's Home Society or if you'd like to Google me, many stories from various media VOA, NPR etc will come up--just to verify, as I know many who've been scammed become skeptical. I'm working on a new piece about this scam with information you all will be very interested to learn. Please anyone whose had contact with Gabby please contact me here. Good wishes and best of luck to everyone in your real adoptions.
Advertisements
Erika I was scammed by this girl in May of 2019 please contact me if I can help take her down
Hi everyone,Hopefully all that need to see this can and don't give Gabby any more fuel for her fire. Naomi did a great job on her piece. As you can see from my previous post (Erika Celeste), Gabby scammed me back in end of July beginning of August 2019. But it's not over. She's still working hard as ever. I'm a journalist working with Business Insider on an adoption beat. I did a story in Dec. on Georgia Tann and the Tennessee Children's Home Society or if you'd like to Google me, many stories from various media VOA, NPR etc will come up--just to verify, as I know many who've been scammed become skeptical. I'm working on a new piece about this scam with information you all will be very interested to learn. Please anyone whose had contact with Gabby please contact me here. Good wishes and best of luck to everyone in your real adoptions.
