ABC11 viewer helps Durham man after Craigslist scam
DURHAM (WTVD) -- When you go looking for work, you expect to make money, but for one Durham man, this was not the case.
We first told you about Jason Hearn in October after he had been scammed out of over $1,400.
This left Hearn out of work and out of money. But one generous ABC11 viewer decided to do something about it.
Scott Camp heard of Hearn's story all the way in Texas, and mailed him a check to help.
"Wow, that, yeah, that helps out a lot," Hearn said.
Hearn was down on his luck when he contacted us last month. He responded to a work ad on Craigslist hoping to make some extra cash.
"I found this one ad, it posted for $20 an hour doing work for a family that was supposedly going to move here from Virginia," Hearn said.
So he responded to the ad and received a check for $1,450 before starting.
"He said $350 of that, $300 was for my labor, pre-work labor, then $50 was for gas, driving back and forth whenever they needed me," Hearn said.
The man who had hired Hearn told him to wire the rest of the money to an art dealer in Georgia. So he did, but when the check never cleared, the money was taken from Hearn's account and it left him in the negatives.
"I don't make that kind of money," Hearn said. "I'm just at a loss. I want to be the only victim."
And that is the comment that caught Camp's attention.
"The story infuriated me, I was furious," Camp said. "You can just look at this guy and he told his story and the last thing was, "I hope I'm the only victim.' This is a guy that had all of his money, plus money he didn't have, just stolen from him and that was his primary concern."
Hearn couldn't believe his generous gift.
"An outreach form Texas to a North Carolina man, I mean I didn't think that was going to happen," he said. "Thanks, just thank you so much, I'm at a loss for words."
Hearn told us he has been getting a lot of positive feedback from ABC11 viewers who saw his story.
He said another viewer contacted him to tell him not to lose hope.
