US woman scammed of $10,000 by fake actor Dacre Montgomery

McKala, a single mother from Kentucky, spent over a year believing she was exchanging romantic messages with Australian actor Dacre Montgomery, who played Billy Hargrove in Stranger Things.

The amateur actress and filmmaker was willing to do almost anything to be with him, despite never meeting him in person or even talking to him on the phone. After leaving her husband and sending him thousands of dollars in gift cards, she began to doubt the validity of their relationship and turned to the YouTube series Catfished for help.

McKala explained that she met her mysterious paramour after she separated from her ‘very toxic’ husband….

….and joined an online artists’ forum to connect with other creatives like herself. She ‘hit it off’ with a stranger who hid behind his user name before claiming he was Dacre — one of her favorite actors.
‘I’m suspicious from the get-go, until he starts doing things that make me believe he is who he is,’ she told Catfished. The real-life Dacre has been in a relationship with his model girlfriend Liv Pollock for six years, but the person she was speaking with claimed they were unhappy.

‘He was venting to me after a few months about his partner, saying she is very controlling of him. He doesn’t get to do the things he wants to do. She’s always there. She’s always got to supervise,’ she recalled. ‘I kind of empathize with that because my ex-husband was that way.’ After months of talking, McKala’s ‘Dacre’ admitted to having feelings for her and asked her to be his girlfriend. ‘He was like, “But you gotta keep it quiet because, you know, I’m still with Liv,”‘ she explained. McKala said he told her that he had broken up with Liv six months before, but they were technically still together to keep up with appearances.

McKala also shared how he sent her poems that were similar to the ones featured in the real-life actor’s book of poetry, DKMH: Poems by Dacre Montgomery. These instances assuaged the doubts she had about her online relationship, and when he asked her for financial help, she came to his rescue.

Before I knew it, it was turning into $100, $200 gift cards,’ she said, explaining that he would sell the gift cards for less than they were worth and pocket the money. McKala estimated that she sent him about $10,000 dollars. According to her, he needed the money because his girlfriend was controlling his finances, but the Catfished team wasn’t buying it.

They found that the actor made $150,000 per episode of Stranger Things, and there wasn’t any evidence that Dacre and Liv had broken up. They were often seen on the red carpet and in interviews together. Further investigation proved that the check ‘Dacre’ had sent to McKala was fake and matched hundreds of checks online with the same signature. The scammer even lied about the lasagna he had allegedly cooked.

The image he sent her was taken from a recipe posted by Martha Stewart. McKala was heartbroken to find out she was being catfished, but she was grateful to finally know the truth about her online relationship.

‘Love makes you do crazy, stupid, irrational things,’ she said, admitting she was ripe for being scammed because of her past trauma.