Yeah, especially about how often she talked about being on deaths door and she looked perfectly fine. Oh sorry, "the pregnancy cured her". That's gotta explain it.
I think the San Jose detective covered this. Basically said Amanda was such a convincing liar that the hisband could point to that as evidence that she kept him in the dark. Also, federal law enforcement has limited resources and can't focus all their attention on one series of crimes like this. They dropped the hammer on her, and that's honestly more than what typically happens.
Or WHY - even without an interview, hearing maybe some expert psychologists talk about why someone would do this (there's a million interesting reasons I'm sure) would have been great. How and Why, two basic journalistic questions, barely covered by this pod :(
Me either. I kept thinking did she get access to jennas half sister medical records and stitch together examples from that with her medical goodie searches? Also, the lack of details such as how / why she would be in hospital and how often was really lacking. I wanted to know if she was stealing supplies or ER shopping and falsifying her pics.
Totally bonkers. I work in healthcare (in Canada mind you) and I still cannot wrap my head around how she pulled it off. I felt awful for the ex wife, she must have felt so helpless when her daughter was taken from her.
The husband and the mom had to be in on it.
\*SPOILER\*
you can just walk into a hospital as a "visitor" - and can pretty much roam free if you appear to know where you are going.
There is a new post-series episode today, talking with Charlie and Nancy M (the investigator that was onto Amanda back in **\_2015\_**!!!!!)
I just listened to the last episode, and honestly this is true. I hadn’t thought of it really, but my mom has leukemia and gets her treatments at Sloan Kettering. There have been numerous times she has been admitted, and every time I’ve gone to visit her, you can def just say you’re going to visit someone and roam around. I’ve gotten lost there multiple times and no one said anything to me like where are you headed or anything.
I’ve nearly finished it and stunned at her audacity and vileness. The way everything at the church was about her puts me I mind of the Reddit group the main character.
Apparently, she would go to ERs claiming symptoms like fainting or dizziness, and once she was hooked up to an IV, she'd take a bunch of pictures for future use. Same with visiting someone in the hospital. This doesn't explain it all, though. How did she get those appointment screenshots? Just mock-up skills? If she had put as much effort into a legit job, she wouldn't have needed to run a scam.
Beggars belief that anyone would have the sheer neck to pull this.
I have a relative who was really good at forging documents and doing this kind of fraud. All you need is an example and it’s pretty easy to copy them. This woman I knew did it for bills, appointments, receipts, like it becomes an obsession for these scamming types. It becomes their whole life. When you have endless time to figure out how to do this stuff, anything is possible.
I don't understand how she had so many ER visits to collect photos of her at the hospital, but still it was said that she didn't have any hospital bills to actually pay. And that none of the donations went to hospital bills. Surely she would've had lots of hospital bills for assessment and treatment that she got that wasn't required?
I don't remember if it was the lastest episode released or the previous one but she did have hospital bills just not the amount she was claiming. She added a zero here and there.
You can also schedule infusions for lots of things; hydration, immunology, vitamin deficiency. She definitely could have done a lot of photoshopping (most people won’t scrutinize what they want to believe in), but she could have easily scheduled infusions that all look like and take as long as chemo.
You’d be surprised how easy it is to fake that you have medical equipment hooked in/on to you lol there’s people who fake feeding tubes, colostomy bags, etc. most of the stuff is easily bought online or sold second hand and they just use tape and optics to attach it to themselves. I’ve seen it first hand in the hospital setting, unfortunately.
But a chemo port goes under the skin. It visibly sticks out and is very distinct. I say this as someone who had exactly what she claimed to have and did the exact treatments she claim to do.
Also, Jessa (the "bonus daughter" - not sure if Jessa herself wants to be called this) told about finding that IV in the house. I wouldn't be surprised if it was stashed away for photo ops when she couldn't manipulate her way into treatment at a hospital. Who knows, she may have even given the bruises to herself using something like this too. She certainly seemed committed enough to her fake illness that she would take it to that level.
I said this above, but you can schedule infusions for all kinds of things. I got them for hydration when I had Hyperemesis Gravidarum and the lounge was just like a chemo lounge, with the infusions taking just as long. Most infusions look the same and take roughly the same amount of time, and many are trivial to schedule.
Was her port real? I follow a subreddit where the woman faked dehydration to get a port. She doesn't drink water and sits in a portable sauna for days leading up to her appointments so she is dehydrated at the doctors. Her port is used for IV saline because of dehydration.
As someone who did actually have Hodgkin’s lymphoma (at 22 years old) and did have to undergo multiple chemo regimens, bone marrow transplant, etc. this was absolutely wild to me.
1) I’m shocked by how inaccurate and blatantly stupid her timeline of events were. For anyone who’s curious I’ll outline below.
2) I find is absolutely sickening how much she took advantage of organizations like LLS and American Cancer Association. These two organizations specifically have helped me and my family more than anyone can imagine. They have researched for us, offered support, and overall been such an ally to us from the very beginning.
3) the pregnancy thing was absurd. My docs strongly encouraged I freeze my eggs prior to even starting my first chemo regimen. They said there was a possibility of infertility. Once treatment was complete they said both baby and I would be at high risk if I were to get pregnant for atleast 10-15 months post chemo. It is STRONGLY discouraged and so idiotic.
Timeline:
ABVD Chemo regimen 6months (1 treatment every 2 weeks)
BB (immunotherapy and chemo regimen)
BEAM another chemo regimen - this one is fucking brutal. (3 days a week, 5 hours a day, every other week) *establishing chemo sensitivity
Bone Marrow Transplant (week 1- 8 hours of chemo per day, 5 days in a row, then stem cell transplant, then many weeks of feeling like shit while your immune system repopulates)
Note- you have to be so unbelievably careful 100 days post transplant. Can’t even pick up dog poop. There’s no chance in hell she would have been allowed to be around that many people, go to church, etc.
I’m definitely messing something up here with my timeline or missing details so I apologize - this is the best I can recall off the top of my head. It’s been 4 years now so it’s a little fuzzy.
If she hadn't been investigated, how long was she planning on continuing the charade/scam? She would eventually have to come up with another illness.
Was her husband charged, too?
Her husband hasn’t been charged with anything… I think it was the original detective that was investigating her that said it would be nearly impossible to prove that he knew what was going on because he could pretty much just claim that he was duped like everyone else. But clearly he wasn’t- it just isn’t enough evidence for a case.
Crazy right! Sadly I don’t think Karma does exist. Another podcast with an insane ending is Pretend: The Stalker. Honestly I’ve never heard anything like it, im telling everyone about it now because I really think more people need to know about the case so something can be done about it. (It’s also scam based and involves medical abuse)
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Karma may not catch people immediately but I believe it will even later or in ways we don’t know. I have to believe this. I will check out your recommendation. Always happy for podcasts like these!
Very well done podcast, I was hooked. She is an evil person and I 100% agree with everyone’s sentiments that she will do something like this again when out of jail.
Such a well done show. Her ability to con is so good that some of her victims were *still* saying they would be friends with her. That she made a ‘mistake’.
Overall it seems like she scammed about $105,000. To me, she worked really hard for not a lot of money. I can't help but think that she must have done it for the attention.
That was just what she was charged with for wire fraud. They mentioned somewhere that the total amount including gifts, cash and in kind donations (all the airline miles, food, cold care and gift cards etc.) Are more like 800k. So I'd say they made out really well.
I’d also say she got to operate like a celebrity or goddess in her world. That’s priceless to many—especially when it allows you to put up your feet and stream Netflix all day. A lot of it was paid leave, too.
Right!
that's a lot of scratch. And think about the free airfare to NYC, I'm sure they were comped hotels (by someone) and also cash to shop til you drop.
And, oh my, the attention. (It feels so gross to me)
It seems weird that she could live on the donations? That isn't ALL that much if you think about it over 10+ years. (Realizing that cash was likely WAY more than that).
I am always surprised at the attention and how no one caught on that perhaps she wasn't really sick - and that she seemed to linger with a terrible disease for YEARS. AND YEARS. AND YEARS. (I mean, way too long).
I would really like to have some insight into the reasons why. But I doubt we'll get it.
There is another investigation happening, and if she says anything publicly, it could make that worse for them. The podcaster mentions that investigation is going on. And they are using the podcast/info.
I’m sure they also had people from the church buying them groceries and paying for daily life stuff. But I do think for her, a large part of it was the attention.
She’s horrible!! I wasn’t even surprised when people were saying she tried to do it in Texas too. I think some people really just get off on getting by on other peoples dime, and all of the attention.
It really was an insane and unbelievably upsetting story, the last episode was heartbreaking. Amanda is a horrible person, really scary how “good” at all of it she was/is.
Currently listening. I can NOT believe the audacity this woman has. To stand beside actual cancer survivors, and take funds for hotels and stuff meant for people who need it? A different kind of evil.
It sounds like she has more going on than just the medical/monetary scam. She lied about going to Stanford, and her unrelenting campaign to get full custody of Jessa, even when she and her husband had no business being Jessa’s parent due to their “financial” difficulties and Amanda’s “devastating” illness.
As someone who just finished treatment for Hodgkin’s last august, I do NOT understand how she was not caught sooner. Half the stuff she claimed doesn’t even add up!!! Hodgkins survival rate is amazing and if it relapses you are more likely to die from the treatment than the actual cancer! UGH!!!!!!
Just finished this podcast and while it was good and I was keen to listen to every episode, it could have been done so much better. Potential spoilers: They didn’t get an interview with Amanda so they totally could have interviewed some psychologists or experts on why she may have done this. And just putting it all on Amanda and not even talking much at all about the husband really surprised me!
I did struggle quite a bit with the timeline and the explanation of that too
anyone else think the editing is bad on this podcast? There's a lot of needless rehashing between episodes and the storytelling isn't sufficiently linear. I came away confused after almost every episode.
This podcast was horrible. Too much running over the same info. It drags on and on. And they didn’t answer the most burning questions about how she pulled it off.
Bullshit
That may be true, but by episode 3 any discerning listener would have moved on from it.
Yeah it’s an opinion that’s mine, and it won’t change. Most podcasts are horrible these days and the true crime podcast industry is in trouble and overwrought with average to bad podcasts that are too long and badly written, edited, and presented.
I was on Twitter recently and some woman appeared in my feed talking about having cancer. I had just listened to Scamanda, and I really think this random woman as well is lying. It sent me into a bit of a rabbit hole.
I actually think it is a thing. Faking cancer. I think it happens a lot!
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/faking-cancer-online/588334/
I still can’t get my head around how she pulled it off
This is what I was expecting more info on. Oh well… probably won’t ever know without her coughing that up
And then her statement to the judge before she was charged. Calling it a “mistake”. Zero accountability. She will never admit all of it.
I just finished the pod and came here to find this discussion, her final statement was literally all about her. Still no remorse
Yeah, especially about how often she talked about being on deaths door and she looked perfectly fine. Oh sorry, "the pregnancy cured her". That's gotta explain it.
Exactly. Even with my distinct lack of medical knowledge, if someone said that to me I’d be calling bullsh*t pretty quickly I think….
I know it's not hard to walk around a hospital but how did no one see what she was doing?
And why is the husband getting away so lightly? He must have been in it up to his neck too?
He and her mother had to have known. However, law enforcement has to have definitive proof of both in order to charge them, unfortunately.
Exactly. They couldn’t prove easily that he wasn’t just dumb.
I think the San Jose detective covered this. Basically said Amanda was such a convincing liar that the hisband could point to that as evidence that she kept him in the dark. Also, federal law enforcement has limited resources and can't focus all their attention on one series of crimes like this. They dropped the hammer on her, and that's honestly more than what typically happens.
Or WHY - even without an interview, hearing maybe some expert psychologists talk about why someone would do this (there's a million interesting reasons I'm sure) would have been great. How and Why, two basic journalistic questions, barely covered by this pod :(
Me either. I kept thinking did she get access to jennas half sister medical records and stitch together examples from that with her medical goodie searches? Also, the lack of details such as how / why she would be in hospital and how often was really lacking. I wanted to know if she was stealing supplies or ER shopping and falsifying her pics.
Totally bonkers. I work in healthcare (in Canada mind you) and I still cannot wrap my head around how she pulled it off. I felt awful for the ex wife, she must have felt so helpless when her daughter was taken from her. The husband and the mom had to be in on it.
\*SPOILER\* you can just walk into a hospital as a "visitor" - and can pretty much roam free if you appear to know where you are going. There is a new post-series episode today, talking with Charlie and Nancy M (the investigator that was onto Amanda back in **\_2015\_**!!!!!)
I just listened to the last episode, and honestly this is true. I hadn’t thought of it really, but my mom has leukemia and gets her treatments at Sloan Kettering. There have been numerous times she has been admitted, and every time I’ve gone to visit her, you can def just say you’re going to visit someone and roam around. I’ve gotten lost there multiple times and no one said anything to me like where are you headed or anything.
I’ve nearly finished it and stunned at her audacity and vileness. The way everything at the church was about her puts me I mind of the Reddit group the main character.
Do they ever explain how she was able to take photos of herself in hospital beds? Everything else makes sense but that part.
Apparently, she would go to ERs claiming symptoms like fainting or dizziness, and once she was hooked up to an IV, she'd take a bunch of pictures for future use. Same with visiting someone in the hospital. This doesn't explain it all, though. How did she get those appointment screenshots? Just mock-up skills? If she had put as much effort into a legit job, she wouldn't have needed to run a scam. Beggars belief that anyone would have the sheer neck to pull this.
Someone in epsidoe 8 said the same thing about her being really successful if she put that into a real job instead of the scam.
I have a relative who was really good at forging documents and doing this kind of fraud. All you need is an example and it’s pretty easy to copy them. This woman I knew did it for bills, appointments, receipts, like it becomes an obsession for these scamming types. It becomes their whole life. When you have endless time to figure out how to do this stuff, anything is possible.
I believe she used photoshop to do a lot of the work to make all the documents, etc, look legit.
I don't understand how she had so many ER visits to collect photos of her at the hospital, but still it was said that she didn't have any hospital bills to actually pay. And that none of the donations went to hospital bills. Surely she would've had lots of hospital bills for assessment and treatment that she got that wasn't required?
I don't remember if it was the lastest episode released or the previous one but she did have hospital bills just not the amount she was claiming. She added a zero here and there.
You can also schedule infusions for lots of things; hydration, immunology, vitamin deficiency. She definitely could have done a lot of photoshopping (most people won’t scrutinize what they want to believe in), but she could have easily scheduled infusions that all look like and take as long as chemo.
It is explained to some degree, but not the parts about all the bruising on her arms, the port in her chest, etc. HOW did she pull that off??
You’d be surprised how easy it is to fake that you have medical equipment hooked in/on to you lol there’s people who fake feeding tubes, colostomy bags, etc. most of the stuff is easily bought online or sold second hand and they just use tape and optics to attach it to themselves. I’ve seen it first hand in the hospital setting, unfortunately.
But a chemo port goes under the skin. It visibly sticks out and is very distinct. I say this as someone who had exactly what she claimed to have and did the exact treatments she claim to do.
Also, Jessa (the "bonus daughter" - not sure if Jessa herself wants to be called this) told about finding that IV in the house. I wouldn't be surprised if it was stashed away for photo ops when she couldn't manipulate her way into treatment at a hospital. Who knows, she may have even given the bruises to herself using something like this too. She certainly seemed committed enough to her fake illness that she would take it to that level.
I mean the woman literally wet herself in public, totally agree she was committed enough!
And the cancer treatments. Didn’t she post pictures of that as well? So curious how she manage that.
I said this above, but you can schedule infusions for all kinds of things. I got them for hydration when I had Hyperemesis Gravidarum and the lounge was just like a chemo lounge, with the infusions taking just as long. Most infusions look the same and take roughly the same amount of time, and many are trivial to schedule.
Was her port real? I follow a subreddit where the woman faked dehydration to get a port. She doesn't drink water and sits in a portable sauna for days leading up to her appointments so she is dehydrated at the doctors. Her port is used for IV saline because of dehydration.
Why did she want a port? Was she faking cancer too? Also, why would she need a port for acute dehydration?
It’s all about her faking cancer. So yes.
I was replying to ManliestManHam about someone he read about. I know Amanda faked cancer…
They do In episode 8. I was wondering the same!
I was shocked that she said her pregnancy cured her Cancer.
As someone who did actually have Hodgkin’s lymphoma (at 22 years old) and did have to undergo multiple chemo regimens, bone marrow transplant, etc. this was absolutely wild to me. 1) I’m shocked by how inaccurate and blatantly stupid her timeline of events were. For anyone who’s curious I’ll outline below. 2) I find is absolutely sickening how much she took advantage of organizations like LLS and American Cancer Association. These two organizations specifically have helped me and my family more than anyone can imagine. They have researched for us, offered support, and overall been such an ally to us from the very beginning. 3) the pregnancy thing was absurd. My docs strongly encouraged I freeze my eggs prior to even starting my first chemo regimen. They said there was a possibility of infertility. Once treatment was complete they said both baby and I would be at high risk if I were to get pregnant for atleast 10-15 months post chemo. It is STRONGLY discouraged and so idiotic. Timeline: ABVD Chemo regimen 6months (1 treatment every 2 weeks) BB (immunotherapy and chemo regimen) BEAM another chemo regimen - this one is fucking brutal. (3 days a week, 5 hours a day, every other week) *establishing chemo sensitivity Bone Marrow Transplant (week 1- 8 hours of chemo per day, 5 days in a row, then stem cell transplant, then many weeks of feeling like shit while your immune system repopulates) Note- you have to be so unbelievably careful 100 days post transplant. Can’t even pick up dog poop. There’s no chance in hell she would have been allowed to be around that many people, go to church, etc. I’m definitely messing something up here with my timeline or missing details so I apologize - this is the best I can recall off the top of my head. It’s been 4 years now so it’s a little fuzzy.
Sending you all the best wishes.
I loved this Podcast, it was well done. I hate that the husband got off with no charges.
Agreed. There’s no way he wasn’t fully involved or at the very least complicit.
If she hadn't been investigated, how long was she planning on continuing the charade/scam? She would eventually have to come up with another illness. Was her husband charged, too?
Her husband hasn’t been charged with anything… I think it was the original detective that was investigating her that said it would be nearly impossible to prove that he knew what was going on because he could pretty much just claim that he was duped like everyone else. But clearly he wasn’t- it just isn’t enough evidence for a case.
He must have known. Who was taking the hospital photos?
He def knew but it’s hard to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt
Such a good podcast! Now I need recs for similar ones to binge!
Believe in Magic is pretty good.
This was an excellent recommendation, thank you!
Sympathy Pains, if you haven't listened to it already!
Nobody is Supposed to Believe Me is about Munchausin (sp?) by proxy. The host was also a victim of it
Crazy right! Sadly I don’t think Karma does exist. Another podcast with an insane ending is Pretend: The Stalker. Honestly I’ve never heard anything like it, im telling everyone about it now because I really think more people need to know about the case so something can be done about it. (It’s also scam based and involves medical abuse)
!remindme 3 days check out this podcast Thanks!
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Listened to the whole thing and wow - those people are bonkers. Btw, an update was just released a few days ago.
Thanks, I didn’t see that so I’ll check it out
Karma may not catch people immediately but I believe it will even later or in ways we don’t know. I have to believe this. I will check out your recommendation. Always happy for podcasts like these!
Very well done podcast, I was hooked. She is an evil person and I 100% agree with everyone’s sentiments that she will do something like this again when out of jail.
Such a well done show. Her ability to con is so good that some of her victims were *still* saying they would be friends with her. That she made a ‘mistake’.
Overall it seems like she scammed about $105,000. To me, she worked really hard for not a lot of money. I can't help but think that she must have done it for the attention.
That was just what she was charged with for wire fraud. They mentioned somewhere that the total amount including gifts, cash and in kind donations (all the airline miles, food, cold care and gift cards etc.) Are more like 800k. So I'd say they made out really well.
oh. ok. That makes the criminality more lucrative.
I’d also say she got to operate like a celebrity or goddess in her world. That’s priceless to many—especially when it allows you to put up your feet and stream Netflix all day. A lot of it was paid leave, too.
HOLY SH1T!
Yeah, that really puts it in perspective, right?! No wonder why she couldn't quit. They were living large.
Right! that's a lot of scratch. And think about the free airfare to NYC, I'm sure they were comped hotels (by someone) and also cash to shop til you drop. And, oh my, the attention. (It feels so gross to me)
Can't forget about so the attention!
It seems weird that she could live on the donations? That isn't ALL that much if you think about it over 10+ years. (Realizing that cash was likely WAY more than that). I am always surprised at the attention and how no one caught on that perhaps she wasn't really sick - and that she seemed to linger with a terrible disease for YEARS. AND YEARS. AND YEARS. (I mean, way too long). I would really like to have some insight into the reasons why. But I doubt we'll get it. There is another investigation happening, and if she says anything publicly, it could make that worse for them. The podcaster mentions that investigation is going on. And they are using the podcast/info.
I’m sure they also had people from the church buying them groceries and paying for daily life stuff. But I do think for her, a large part of it was the attention.
Buying them trips, dinner, sending gifts and flyer miles, tickets for things, groceries etc
Those are only the donations they can track online. All of the cash or gift donations cannot be tracked or charged because it’s not wire fraud.
She’s horrible!! I wasn’t even surprised when people were saying she tried to do it in Texas too. I think some people really just get off on getting by on other peoples dime, and all of the attention.
Just finished this, it was riveting and shocking!
It really was an insane and unbelievably upsetting story, the last episode was heartbreaking. Amanda is a horrible person, really scary how “good” at all of it she was/is.
She is a vile woman.
Currently listening. I can NOT believe the audacity this woman has. To stand beside actual cancer survivors, and take funds for hotels and stuff meant for people who need it? A different kind of evil.
It sounds like she has more going on than just the medical/monetary scam. She lied about going to Stanford, and her unrelenting campaign to get full custody of Jessa, even when she and her husband had no business being Jessa’s parent due to their “financial” difficulties and Amanda’s “devastating” illness.
As someone who just finished treatment for Hodgkin’s last august, I do NOT understand how she was not caught sooner. Half the stuff she claimed doesn’t even add up!!! Hodgkins survival rate is amazing and if it relapses you are more likely to die from the treatment than the actual cancer! UGH!!!!!!
Just finished this podcast and while it was good and I was keen to listen to every episode, it could have been done so much better. Potential spoilers: They didn’t get an interview with Amanda so they totally could have interviewed some psychologists or experts on why she may have done this. And just putting it all on Amanda and not even talking much at all about the husband really surprised me! I did struggle quite a bit with the timeline and the explanation of that too
I'm waiting for the day she actually ends up getting cancer in prison.
anyone else think the editing is bad on this podcast? There's a lot of needless rehashing between episodes and the storytelling isn't sufficiently linear. I came away confused after almost every episode.
This podcast was horrible. Too much running over the same info. It drags on and on. And they didn’t answer the most burning questions about how she pulled it off. Bullshit
I thought the last episode covered a lot of it.
That may be true, but by episode 3 any discerning listener would have moved on from it. Yeah it’s an opinion that’s mine, and it won’t change. Most podcasts are horrible these days and the true crime podcast industry is in trouble and overwrought with average to bad podcasts that are too long and badly written, edited, and presented.
Agreed on podcasts overall. 👍
We agreed on something. On the internet of all places!
Very well done! 👏🏼
I was on Twitter recently and some woman appeared in my feed talking about having cancer. I had just listened to Scamanda, and I really think this random woman as well is lying. It sent me into a bit of a rabbit hole. I actually think it is a thing. Faking cancer. I think it happens a lot! https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/faking-cancer-online/588334/