He is a rapper who is known to be easygoing, carefree, and loves to spin rhymes about the adoration he has for his wife, and scammers have taken advantage of Chance The Rapper’s reputation. It isn’t uncommon for artists to be the victims of elaborate schemes that con people out of money, but according to a recent report by CBS News, Chance The Rapper’s name has been used by a scammer for nearly a decade.
Chicago banking professionals and sisters Ibi and Lulu Cole were swindled out of $36,000 by a man named Jeffrey Washington. He claimed that “CEDA [the Community and Economic Development Association] and Chance the Rapper were working together in a program to pay off mortgages and other financial obligations for residents in the area, including light bill, gas bill, insurance, car insurance, telephone bills and things like that.”
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Washington reportedly told Lulu that they needed to give away $600K in charitable donations immediately, and after conversing with him, she believed his story. Right there, both Lulu and her sister had the man pay a bill, and when they checked, it showed a payment was made. Then, the man asked if she had a mortgage and Lulu brought up her rental property that still had an outstanding balance of $45K.
“[The bank] asked if he had authorization to interact with the representative for that call only,” Lulu said. “So he knew very specific terms to ask or to say to the representative so that he could gain access to making payments on these accounts.” Sister Ibi thought it was a scam but the bank claimed the payment from Washington for the mortgage went through.
Soon, there were payments made for Ibi’s mortgage of $100K and emails and phone calls to companies confirmed payments. Because it was all done so quickly, Washington did ask for money from the ladies, and in turn, one gave him $9K and the other $27K, because to the sisters, this man just saved them hundreds of thousands in bills.
Washington was long gone with $36K in his pocket, but days later, institutions were calling the women to tell them there were problems with their payments. Police confirmed that Washington has been using that alias since at least 2014 and usually scams people for $500 to almost $7,000 each time.
“We were in the middle of building an afterschool community center. And the funds that I had set aside to build that community center. I’m no longer going to be able to build it,” said Ibi. Watch a segment about the scam below.
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