EDITORS NOTE: Names have been changed.
It was a couple weeks before Christmas and I was hard at work planning for a film shoot for after the holiday. It was a movie I had written and was gonna star in, with the help of several of my friends directing and producing. That day, I was calling some places our director had suggested that would be good-looking and safe, since we were shooting on the side of the road. In the first call, the location manager quoted me $2000 for one day of use and laughed at me when I told her our budget.
Great.
So we decided that we would scout public locations. After calling Palmdale's film bureau, we found out that these would cost upwards of $700. Not great, but better than $2000. So we scheduled our scout. Then, I received an email from someone named Jessica Kline, subject line: "Serious Opportunity".
Hi Dan,
I came across you on Backstage.com while google searching for an actor to sponsor and/or films to fund. I normally do this via referrals but, thought it be interesting to find someone myself. I have been providing serious financial support to actors, athletes, musicians, business start ups, scholarships, and funding films for over 12 years now. I do this for personal reasons but, also as a tax write-off/difference for my Real Estate business. I'm blown away by your talent and excited that you are a Writer/Director too! I'd be interested in sponsoring your career and possibly funding any featured film endeavors you may be interested in producing and staring in. Please let me know your thoughts.
Sincerely,
Jessica Kline
Huh. Was this it? Did I just get my break? This sort of thing doesn't just happen, right? I mentally filed it under "Cautiously Optimistic".
I mean, if this was a scam, they certainly did their homework. I definitely had a profile on Backstage, and I’m definitely also a writer/director. Whoever this was at least custom tailored it to me a little bit. And if I’ve learned anything about rich people in my short time on Earth, it’s that they would rather do literally anything with their money than give it to the government. But then I looked at her email:
kline-investments@hotmail.com.
Hotmail? So Jessica was either eighty years old or definitely a scam artist. But what was the scam? Talk to me on the phone and make me give up my social? I decided I’d respond. But not right away! Didn't want to seem desperate. I mean, how often does one get an email like this? It wasn't like it was from a Nigerian Prince! I would just make sure to not give her my Social Security Number and I'd be fine. The next afternoon, I wrote to her.
Hi Jessica,
Thank you for the kind words! This sounds great, I've got so many projects I'd love to move forward with. What kind of films have you financed in the past? I've actually got three productions in the works right now that I would star in, a music video that parodies "bad at love" by halsey, an eight episode musical series and a teaser for a suspense thriller feature film I'm looking to make. We're actually casting for the teaser today! But of course with more investment we could make it even better and perhaps cast name actresses alongside me!
How have you done this in the past? Are you in the LA area? I'd be down to meet for coffee or chat more on the phone about it.
Thanks again!
-Dan DeStefano
I couldn’t lose. Friendly, approachable, not giving too much away, definitely a go-getter. I was everything she would need in a sugar baby. Or whatever this was. She responded promptly.
Great! May I call you sometime to discuss further?
She wants to call… So, at this point I’d be giving her my phone number. I thought about it for a while, then went on my Backstage profile to see what was publically available. And right there, clear as crystal… was my phone number. On my resume. So, she literally already had it if she wanted it. So I could totally give it to her. But not before taking down the offending resume and taking my phone number off of it. And doing a full google search of myself, seeing what else is available publically and cleaning it up. Then I responded.
For sure! My number is (xxx)xxx-xxxx. When are you thinking?
I can set some time aside Tuesday late afternoon early evening??
Double question mark? Not sure what that was about. Seemed a bit manic. But, I dunno, maybe that’s how rich people are? I tried finding her on Facebook and Instagram to no avail. I did a Google search of her name and came up empty handed. But we’d talk and I’d find out once and for all if this was an actual person, which seemed unlikely. At this point, we turned over to texts. She texted me to talk, but I was in the car. She told me to text her back later that night and when I did, she said that she was too hoarse to talk. She had a cold or something.
I didn’t sleep much that night. In fact I had Black Mirror-esque nightmares about Jessica and my phone and tracking and the dark web and Donald Trump. (I had made fun of him in a parody video so I was nervous about that now, too.)
Thankfully, I recovered and remained cautiously optimistic. I kept working on prepping for the film shoot, but with Jessica staunchly in my head. I dreamed of calling that locations manager and telling her off. What used to be out of reach, was now very much possible. $300 for a roadkill prop? No problem! $700 prop car for a car accident? Let's do it. $2000 for that location? Chump change. The possibilities were endless. Some time passed and I flew home to Massachusetts for Christmas break. About a day later, I got a text from her:
Dan, I apologize I’m still not feeling well and now the Holiday is fast approaching. I’d like to reschedule for next wed... I have to be better by then...I hope you have a very Merry Christmas
I told her "okay!", still thinking there’s no way this can be real. But she was so... nice! Wishing me a Merry Christmas. And real people get colds. On the other hand, maybe this is her way of softening me up, building up the tension so I slip up and reveal it all.
Well now we had a date. All I had to do was wait.
My normal life seemed strange with Jessica Kline a part of it. On the one hand this rich woman wanted to sponsor me and on the other, my dad and I spent an hour on the phone trying to consolidate Jet Blue points so I could fly home for Christmas. And Christmas as an adult with no kids is just weird. I asked for one thing. Dress shoes. My dad and I went to Broadway Shoe at the Liberty Tree Mall and picked out two pairs! It was buy one get one half off.
Then on Christmas, I got another text:
Merry Christmas Dan...what time tomorrow would work?
Tomorrow?? That was two days earlier than she had said we'd talk! She caught me off guard, but I adapted.
Oh probably around 1
No response. She was starting to feel more like a first date than someone who wants to help my career. 12pm rolled around the next day. I remembered that we were on different coasts, so I confirmed:
Btw I’m on the east coast so I meant EST. 1pm PST I think I’ll be with my cousins.
So when then??
Again with the double question mark. I replied:
I could talk now if you’re able
That snowy afternoon, Jessica Kline called.
I was nervous, I’ll admit. As likely as this was to be a full-on scam, there was a chance that maybe this is one of the handful of times that this actually happens to people. Maybe this has happened to lots of people, but they just don’t talk about it. LA is a strange place I wouldn’t be surprised if this sort of thing happened all the time. So I grabbed a paper and pen and answered the phone.
She definitely wasn’t an old woman. She sounded like a cool college girl, but definitely in her thirties. Like, a voice that was comfortable hanging with the guys, tapping a keg. She sounded really excited to be talking to me, and said as much.
“Wow, I’m really excited to be talking to you, I’ve been looking forward to this.”
“Cool, yeah, me too!” I was half-lying. Because this, of course, was a scam. She really did sound excited, like, TOO excited.
She told me that I must have a ton of questions for her, but, I really only had one question, “What’s the scam?” But I couldn’t just come out with that. So I asked her.
“Who are you and how does all this work?”
She went on to tell me that she made a ton of money in real estate. She’s originally from Arizona and owns properties there. She currently lives in San Francisco and also owns properties there. She has funded student films at the Film Institute. She said she likes to go to Premieres to see what they've done with her money. She has sponsored two actors in the past, the first one only used her sponsorship for like four months before making it on his own. The other, they worked together for four years. I asked who it was, she said that they had signed an NDA so she couldn’t talk about it. But she said that she would talk to him and maybe she could tell me later. She told me how excited she was that I was making my own content and she wanted to make sure that I would be making a ton of content with the money that she provided. She doesn’t want any credit, she would give the money to me and I would do whatever I wanted with it. The only restriction was no porn, and no torture porn.
This was fine with me.
The notes I took during the call.
She told me that she discovered from previous sponsorships that in LA, in order to be a star, you have to act like one. And that’s how they did it with the last guy. You have to have the house, the car, the clothes, and then you become a star. So, she wanted to give me that lifestyle so that I could achieve my dream. Her last sponsee got $80,000/month from her and a $9.5 Million project fund. They hired a publicist for him, too, and that was integral in getting him where he wanted to go. She also has a house in the hills that she leased to him for $1/month. Then after telling me all this, she asked, “So how much money do you want?”
I was listening to her spout off these numbers as if they were nothing, trying to keep it together. $80,000? A month? That seemed like WAY too much. Like Monopoly money. But to Jessica, it seemed, too much was just enough. I stuttered and stumbled to give her an answer. Then she surprised me by saying,
“You don’t seem very excited about this. I’m disappointed you’re not more excited.”
And I perked right up. I mean, she was right, I wasn’t taking this seriously at all. This was all above my head, like, even if she was going to give me this amount of money, I struggled to convince myself that I deserved it. Start me off with a small bit and I’ll do the rest! But that didn’t compute to her. Maybe I’m in an East Coast mindset still and this is how it works on the West Coast. This was her most effective tactic, honestly. I wasn’t letting myself take this seriously, but now, I was.
“Well, I’m not used to this kind of thing… what do you have?” I asked.
“Oh. That’s kind of weird to talk about…” she started. “But, okay…”
She told me she had 27 single family properties in Arizona. She told me that she has $90 Million in the bank. She told me that this month she was gonna have $3.2 Million in “extra money”. And next month, she’s on track to make $4.3 Million in extra money. And she wanted to make sure that whatever I did, that I did it BIG. So then after we talked she was going to meet with me and the other people she was talking to in Los Angeles with her lawyer and we could sign the papers. And if I didn't have a lawyer, she'd get me one.
Okay, so suddenly this was a competition between me and several other candidates. She assured me that I was the one she was most excited about.
“So. How much do you want?” She asked me again.
I still didn’t know. I couldn’t even think in those terms. Those were play numbers. I told her that I have a production company, too. She asked how much I wanted for the production company. I didn’t know that either. I had to do the numbers. She told me that I could think about it and call her back. She wanted three numbers. How much per month I want for my company, how much per month for me, and then how much I want for a Project Fund for my projects.
I asked her about her social media, and she said that she doesn’t use it much, but is on facebook. She gave me a specific name to search for. Jessica Lauren Kline. Then she hung up.
I immediately looked her up on social media. Her profile pic was a close up of a young girl with perfect bratz doll skin, big sunglasses, wearing a headset because she was on a helicopter. Perfect scam photo. The sunglasses covered up most of her face. The border of the photo said “Merry Christmas”. Her cover photo was of three girls all posing together. The middle girl was PROBABLY her, but you couldn’t really tell. Her description was:
“Real estate broker and investor who provides financial sponsorships.”
Well that checks out I guess. It also says that she was a former pin up girl at USO, lives in San Fransisco, CA, is from Tempe, AZ, and is Widowed. Widowed? I guess that would explain the money potentially… It also said she joined in September 2010, so it’s an old profile. Her photos only have one like on them, though. But maybe if I friended her, I would see more? I decided against adding her as a friend. That would give her too much access.
My mother had been out shopping, but got home in the middle of my phone call. She came into the dining room where I took the call and talked to me about something, I can’t remember what. My mind was racing.
“I was just on the phone with a woman who wants to give me like $80,000/month.”
“Oh…”
I explained to her what had just transpired on the phone. All the things we talked about. I kept insisting that it was probably fake, but I should probably like, see where it goes. Cause at this point, what’s the scam? I definitely wouldn’t give her my social.
As I told her more and more about it, my mom bought into it, too. She left me alone so I could calculate how much exactly I would ask for. I looked up how much it would cost to have:
Equinox Membership
Personal Trainer
Nutritionist
In-Home Chef
Lease a Tesla
Publicist
Acting Classes
So far, all these things that I would want cost something like $6000/month. How could I ask for FORTY? How does that make sense? Then I thought about what it would cost to like, get a bottle at a party, take my friends out, throw parties, etc. So there’s what… $12,000? Then I thought about clothes. But how often do you buy clothes? This was hard.
Then I thought about my business. I went on craigslist to see how much leasing an office would generally cost, but I kept thinking, “wouldn’t that just come out of the project fund?” I was injecting WAY too much logic into this.
Then my dad came home. I explained the situation to him. His response: “What are you asking for a Tesla for!?”
“Daddddd, that’s what she WANTS me to ask for!”
“So you’re gonna lease a Tesla, then she cuts you off and then what?? Make sure you ask her for the full year!”
It went on like that for a while. Getting advice from my dad on how to talk to this silly woman who was clearly scamming me. But maybe not. I looked up movies like the movies I wanted to make so I could figure out how much I’d want for my project fund. They ranged from $5 Million to $25 Million. So I decided I’d ask for $20 Million. RIDICULOUS. I also came up with the other numbers. I would ask for $45,000/month for me and $60,000/month for my business. $105,000/month. Not bad, right? I still couldn’t see spending $45,000 on myself PER MONTH, but hey, this is what she wants. And what were the limits? Were there limits? Would she let me pay for my parents to fly into LA? Would she let me pay off my credit card debt with this? Hell, I could pay it off in less than a month! If people out there have all this extra money, why does ANYONE have credit card debt? I could just do it for a couple months and I’d be set for life!
At this point, my whole family was cautiously optimistic about this. There was a palpable excitement in the air. But that gave way to a palpable stress. I texted her:
12/26 4:19pm: “hey , I have some numbers for you if you can talk!”
Nothing.
12/26 4:49pm: “I’ll be home till like 6pm EST.”
Nothing.
At dinner, 6pm was fast approaching. I wanted to just call. But my dad told me not to. It was closing in on 6pm! “Don’t give a time constraint when there’s Millions of dollars on the line!” my dad berated me. “Didn’t I teach you anything? You excuse yourself from the party, go to an empty bedroom, and talk to the woman!”
Sage advice. Mom was on my side, though.
“Just call her! Get it over with.”
“You don’t want to seem desperate!” My dad replied.
But I decided to call. After all, my dad hasn’t ALWAYS been right! I was remembering when we bought that WWE stock together. And even worse than getting something or not getting something, is waiting for it. I had to get it over with, give my mind a rest. So I called.
And she didn’t answer.
DAMMIT. Dad was right. I sat in the office for a bit, my dad came round, asked me what happened.
“She didn’t answer.”
“I told you! What are you doing in here?”
“I dunno. I’m just stressed out about the whole thing.”
“Hey, this is all part of being an adult. You gotta learn to handle it.”
He was right. Like Tom Petty said, "The waiting is the hardest part." If I've learned anything about myself in my time on this earth, it's that waiting stresses me out. The day before, I couldn't leave the house until I resolved a situation with the director of my film. It ended up being a misunderstanding, but until we chatted I was paralyzed. And at this point, the film seemed so quaint. With Jessica's help, we were gonna get $5 Million and shoot this thing RIGHT. So why even talk about it?
So 6:30pm rolled around and she still hadn't responded, so I left for a family party. Good distraction. But this was still all I wanted to talk about. I told my cousin Leah about it and she reassured me,
“NO Daniel, don't talk to her! This is extremely fishy.”
But I had chatted with her. I heard her voice. I knew she was real. And besides, I wasn't gonna give her my social or anything.
I felt like I was waiting for a text back from a potential date. Thinking about all the reasons she might not be texting me. We were in different time zones after all. But if she was so interested in providing financial sponsorship, why was she acting like a 23-year old I had met on Tinder? Then she finally texted back.
8:03pm: “Out shopping be home later”
It was something. Vague, but at least she was still texting me back! The next morning, I still hadn’t heard anything new. So I decided to send her another text.
1:25pm: hey Jessica! I’m around all day today if you have time to chat
4:13pm: Hi Dan… one more person to speak with… fyi
UGH. This was exactly like dating. Didn’t answer my question at all, just gave me another riddle to decode. And what do I say to that? I went through several responses before I landed on:
“thanks for the heads up!”
As the hours ticked by with no response, I wondered if the exclamation point was too much. Maybe I should have asked for clarification! Did I say the wrong thing? My dad asked me if she called yet and continued to offer advice.
"Ask her if you have to pay taxes on it!"
"Make sure she pays for leases up front! You don't wanna be stuck with that bill!"
"When I'm dealing with a guy who needs ten sheets of slatwall, I always make sure to--"
And so on and so on. Then at around 4pm, she called. I gathered my notes and she answered the phone.
“Hi Dan, this is so much better than texting back and forth.”
“Okay, sure. Maybe if you’d respond…” I thought. But instead of saying that, I said the line I had rehearsed in my head a hundred times.
“Sorry about last time, it seemed to good to be true so maybe I sounded a little tentative, but now I’m totally on board!”
Perfect.
“Great!”
“I have numbers for you!”
“Great. I can’t wait to hear. I was on the phone with one of the other guys and I asked for some identifying info and he said that it sounded weird to him. I was like, I don’t want to work with someone who thinks this is weird, right?”
In my head, I clocked the words, “some identifying info”. But continued on.
“Absolutely not! What a strange person.” I replied.
“I know!”
“Okay, so I looked into a bunch of other films and how much they cost and figured my project fund should be $20 million.”
“Okay, great. So that’s for one project or many projects?”
“Well, I figure we can do one big project a year and two small projects.”
“Okay, great. Thinking big, I like it! So how much for yourself?”
I started to get nervous.
“I figured we can combine the company and personal for a total of…”
“No, no, no, I asked for separate numbers.”
“Okay… well for the company I was thinking $65K per month and for myself, $40K for a total of $105K.”
There was a long pause.
“Oh.”
And another long pause.
“I’m confused.” She said. “Is that all you think you’re worth?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I told you how much I can provide… that’s all you want?”
“Okay, um… $210K/month.”
“I’m confused. How are you gonna buy houses and cars with that? I want you to LIVE like a star. I want you to have your own stuff!”
It was like she didn't hear or care about my updated numbers. This was going off the rails.
“Riiiight,” I said. “and I probably have to like add 30% for taxes, right?”
Another long pause.
“What? You’re thinking about this all wrong. I’m so confused.”
“No, no... I want $200K/month. For sure. That’s how much.”
“Wait, this doesn’t make sense. Don’t you want to be a star?”
“Well, yeah…”
“How much do big stars make?”
“Well… they work per movie, so…” My brain struggled. I couldn't make all of this work together. It was too much!
“Here. Why don’t you look up how much your favorite actor makes per year and we’ll talk again when you know how much you’re really worth.”
“...okay…”
Then she hung up. This time, I really felt more than any other time, that I was being punked. Like I was on some radio morning show. Her constant confusion and just the way she talked sounded so… weird. My Spidey sense was tingling. I went back into the living room and sat with my parents.
“So! How did it go!?” They asked, very excited.
At this point, it felt extra fake to me. I felt silly discussing it at all. I told them what had happened. My dad said,
“Ask for it all! 3.2 Million!” and my mom agreed.
I kept insisting just how off and weird it was getting. But, I did my due diligence. I looked up Chris Pratt. He made something like $10 Million per year. Which is $800,000/month. So I guess I would ask for that?
But the whole thing just felt so… wrong to me. Like, Chris Pratt worked long and hard at his career and turned his lucky break into a freaking amazing career. Who was I to ask for that kind of money when I hadn’t earned it at all? But then again, if I got that money and turned it into something great, than, in hindsight, I guess I would have earned it? Either way, I wasn’t about to let my moral compass get in the way of accepting a metric ton of cash.
But still, $800K per month?? That just seemed obscene. So I decided I’d ask for $400K. Much more reasonable. It’s half Chris Pratt, but still. I’m not Chris Pratt!
We got Korean BBQ with my extended family that night, and I was sitting next to my Aunt. Mind still racing. I was just waiting for an excuse to talk about this. Talk it through. Get it out of my head. So my aunt turned to me, “So, how’s LA? Rich and famous yet?”
Bingo. I didn’t get into details, but I told her that I had a serious opportunity. Like, fly the whole family to LA sort of opportunity. Like, stay in my guest house opportunity. We both giggled a bit and she told me to keep her updated.
I didn’t text Jessica until the next day around 6pm. I was waiting in the airport for my flight back to LA. I was playing a little hard to get. Didn’t want to seem desperate.
6:40pm: hey Jessica! I’m traveling back to LA right now, will you be able to speak tomorrow?
At the same time, I was calling my lawyer friend. Cause, if this is all fake, what’s the scam? I needed to know all the ways that she could be scamming me. He couldn’t call me back until I was literally on the plane, knees knocking against the seat back in front of me, sitting inches away from the people next to me in my row. I was the middle seat. I must’ve sounded like an insane person explaining all that had happened on the phone. But I had to talk to him then and there, she could text back at any moment! I asked if he would come with me when Jessica and I met. I told him I could totally pay him if all of this turned out to be real. He insisted that this sort of deal does not happen on a hotmail email address. I agreed. But still…
So the plane landed. I got home to my studio apartment. I looked around. Thought about that house in the hills. It was still possible. It was late and I went to bed.
The next morning, I still hadn’t heard from her. So I texted.
11:46am: hi Jessica, I’m ready to chat again if you are
And heard nothing. I made an appointment to fix my iPhone screen so I could resell it. Here I was, prepping my old phone to sell so I could afford my new phone. All while imagining what life would be like with Jessica Kline’s help. Parties I could throw at my house in the hills. Bottles I could buy. I could invite people to my table and they’d come. Instead of telling people I’m a “freelance editor and actor” I would be able to say I was an Executive Producer. I could fund my friend’s projects with this money. My friends who work long and hard to get $40,000 via Kickstarter for their projects, I could just give it to them. But still, I had to try and sell my iPhone. And wait.
The next day on my way to The Grove to get my iPhone screen fixed, I texted her again.
1:42pm: hey what’s going on? Haven’t heard from you in a couple days…
And quicker than she had responded in a while, she wrote back.
2:11pm: I apologize I’ve decided to go a different direction for now. Good luck to you.
My mind started spinning. I fucked it all up. If this is a scam, why would she stop before scamming me? If this was a scam, she would have asked me for SOMETHING. So this HAD to be real. You don’t get rejected from a fake thing! Was I not good enough to even be scammed?
But then again, maybe that was exactly it. I wasn’t the right mark for her. Maybe I was too thoughtful and methodical in determining how much money I deserved. Maybe she was looking for someone who’s head was further in the clouds. I guess that’s a good thing! But goddammit, I couldn’t just leave this string hanging. I would die in a pool of my own anxiety. There’s nothing worse than the lack of certainty. I had to respond.
But how? She had reacted poorly to me NOT acting like a star. So I decided I should be a little bitchy. Incredulous. The way a star would respond. But at the same time, I told myself to stop playing her game, whatever it was! But I had to say something.
because I didn’t give you a high enough number?
that’s dumb af I would do great things with that money
just needed a push to think so big
That was as incredulous as I could get. Then she said:
Please dont be offended
And then, I had nothing to say. To respond further would make it more real in my head and I needed it to be fake. Losing out on millions is a much worse feeling than avoiding getting scammed by some weirdo.
So I got my phone screen fixed and went to see a movie with my movie pass. Only $10/month, you can see any movie you want! Sigh.
So for the next couple days, I told this story to all of my friends. To anyone who would listen. Asked my friends in real estate if they'd ever heard of her. All of them told me that it was definitely fake, that this sort of thing doesn’t happen. And I wanted to believe them. But it put me into a Sophie's Choice of sorts. I was either a loser who let Millions of dollars slip through his fingers because he couldn’t think big enough, or I was an idiot talking to a fake woman who was scamming me for my social security number.
And what if she WAS fake? Who was I talking to on the phone for so long? A psychopath who gets off on acting like a rich woman, calling struggling actors? A housewife who gets bored during the day and lives a double life as a fake debutante? A down-on-her-luck barista at Starbucks who needs to pay for school? Was it Meryl Streep researching a role? She's so good, I'd believe it in a second.
This went on until New Years Eve. I was telling the story to my friend Kyle, also a writer in LA tryna get projects funded and make stuff. As I was telling the story, he stopped me.
“Wait. Does she have properties in Arizona?”
“Yeah…”
“Did she tell you how much she makes every month?”
“Yeah! 3.2--”
“3.2 Million” he said in unison with me.
Whoever this was, had done the same thing to him! Except I guess he gave her a high enough number and they talked for months on end. And according to Kyle, they got so far as to get his lawyers involved who investigated her. Turns out she was just a woman with no money at all. According to him, it’s not even a scam. It’s just some woman who wants to feel special. Finally. Closure.
And I guess that’s what we all want, really. And in making herself feel special, she made me feel special, for a brief moment. If nothing else, she made me think about the world in extremely different terms. She was throwing out numbers I had never even thought possible.
Back to reality, I shot a music video using only a ring light and my apartment as a backdrop. Cost: $0. We went ahead and shot the film and our biggest cost turned out to be the $270 car rental, thank god. A week before, that was chump change. And now again, it was all too real. Honestly, I still don’t fully know if Jessica Kline is real or not, or if it’s just a coincidence. I hope she’s not. Because if she is, then after writing this, she’s DEFINITELY not giving me her money.
-Dan DeStefano