A mother-of-one has revealed she ditched her relationship and spent thousands of pounds on a Stranger Things romance scam.
McKala, from Kentucky, United States, believed she was dating Dacre Montgomery, who plays Billy Hargrove in the Netflix drama, and subsequently divorced her husband.
The mother-of-one, who has a daughter nearly aged seven, also sent the person posing as the 28-year-old Australian actor $10,000 (£7,836) after they asked for financial help.
McKala explained she began talking to ‘Dacre’ on an internet forum and was initially suspicious of his identity until he managed to convince her by telling her to watch a specific episode of the Netflix sci-fi before it came out.
During the instalment, Dacre’s character Billy appeared which led McKala to believe he was genuine explaining she didn’t believe those other than insiders would have prior knowledge of the series.
After a year of chatting online, McKala said she had to make a choice between her husband and ‘Dacre’ and decided to end her marriage, with her former partner leaving in just two months.
Now in an online relationship with ‘Dacre’, McKala told the Catfished YouTube channel he began asking her for money as he was unable to access his bank account due to a controlling girlfriend.
She explained: ‘He said if I try to use my bank account she’s over it as it’s joint. He said so she keeps all the stuff so I would have to ask her all the time. And I understood that point too because my ex was very controlling with our money.’
McKala said she agreed to help ‘now and again’ which soon turned into hundred-dollar gift cards and tallied up to $10K, although ‘Dacre’ promised he would pay her back.
However, given the real Dacre is known to be in a committed relationship with Liv Pollock and is thought to earn $150,000 (£117,000) per Stranger Things episode, McKala’s suspicions grew again.
The Catfished team soon uncovered McKala was indeed being scammed, with the information about the Stranger Things episode that lead her to believe he was the real deal public information before it was released.
After hearing the truth, McKala said: ‘Love makes you do crazy, stupid, irrational things,’ she said, admitting she was ripe for being scammed because of her past trauma.
‘If you’re someone like me, you’re afraid of abandonment and you’re a real big people pleaser and you’re very co-dependent. These scammers, they just kind of come in and they leech off that.’
Stranger Things, which premiered in 2016, will return for a fifth and final season with Terminator star Linda Hamilton joining the cast.
Across four seasons, set in the 1980s, the residents of fictional town Hawkins, Indiana, have had to fight off the dark forces from an alternate dimension.
Beetlejuice actress Winona Ryder, Hellboy star David Harbour and Finn Wolfhard have also starred in the show.
Stranger Things is available to stream on Netflix.
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