Reddit Stories - BETRAYED_ How a Cyber INTRUDER Stole $40,000 from My FAMILY to Lure Me In_

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayed #cyberintruder #stolenmoney #family #luredin  Summary: Discover the chilling tale of a cyber intruder who stole $40,000 from a family to lure them in.  Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayed, cyberintruder, stolenmoney, family, luredinBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. My relative by marriage engaged a cyber intruder to swipe $40,000 from my financial institution to entice me with my own funds to cancel my marriage to her offspring. I, a 30-year-old woman, was in the process of getting married. Married to my boyfriend of four years two days ago, but it went very wrong, all because of my mother-in-law. My husband is 27M. We met at a conference where he asked me out and I agreed because he was polite and funny

which was pretty much everything I wanted in a guy. We met each other's families around six months into the relationship and his mother was like any other mother-in-law. She didn't like me one bit and made sure I felt that. But I'm not one to get phased by people who dislike me so I didn't pay much mind to her either and ignored her behavior when I was around. My boyfriend tried to get her to behave and rebuke her many times,

in person when they were on their own, but he told me she was just too hung up on the fact that I was older, had a higher income, and was also kind of taller than my husband. I was too much in her opinion, but, thank God my husband didn't feel that way. We didn't care about superficial things like those, and I couldn't care less about what my mother-in-law believed either. My husband and I have been together for almost four years now and we got engaged about a year ago, so I expected her to be okay with this at some point because I wasn't going anywhere. She stopped being weird around me once we got engaged and started ignoring me altogether, which was actually a better thing for me because now I didn't

have to deal with her at all. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, my mother-in-law barely spoke to us, and neither did she come to visit us like she sometimes would. My husband was too busy juggling work and wedding prep to notice, and I noticed but I didn't care enough about her to bring it up. Then on the day of the wedding, while I was waiting for my husband to arrive at the venue, my mother-in-law asked me if she could speak to me in person and pulled me aside. My husband's car had broken down on his way from the hotel and because we'd picked a really isolated location near the woods to get married in, it wasn't possible for him to walk to the venue. He'd also left about half an hour after me from the hotel because I'd told him that I wanted to reach the

location first and surprise him with the first look but that had backfired and now he was running super late. So it would take a while for him to make it and that's why I agreed to talk to my mother-in-law about whatever it was that she wanted to speak to me about. To my surprise, she pulled out her phone and transferred $20,000 to me immediately. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, so I just looked at her blankly until she explained that this money was so that I would leave her son on the spot. She had $20,000 extra that she'd send me as soon as I canceled the wedding.

So obviously I was shocked to hear that and I was even more surprised to see the $40,000 because there was no way she'd come up with that sort of money on her own. I excused myself and decided to go through my messages from the bank while she waited a little distance away from me and then I received the notification that the money she'd transferred had been added to my current balance. The updated balance should have been $20,000 more than when I'd last checked, which was about a week ago, but instead, it just showed me a way less amount. I realized something was very fishy and made a call to my bank, which is how I learned that

for the last four days, someone had been transferring $10,000 daily into their personal account and today, that same account transferred half of the money back to me. I didn't know how she managed to do it at the time, but I called the police immediately and rushed back to my mother-in-law, then grabbed her by the arm so she couldn't run and got my bridesmaids to help me as well. She kept screaming like crazy throughout, but I didn't care because this was serious and she wasn't going to get away with it. She'd essentially tried to transfer my own money back to me and I needed to know how she'd stolen it from me without me finding out. Half an hour later, the cops had finally arrived so I and a couple of bridesmaids went to the police station.

so we could explain everything. My mate of honor stayed back at the venue so she could explain everything to my husband when he arrived because I knew I'd be too busy at the station to actually respond to him. Once we were there, my mother-in-law confessed out of fear that she'd hired a professional hacker

to pull off this scam so that I'd leave her son. The cybercrime department did explain the details of how the hacker must have pulled it off. I'd probably clicked on some link or downloaded something that had been sent to me online and that's how he gained access to everything on my phone. I didn't get any notification from my bank regarding any suspicious activity on my account

because the transactions appeared to have been conducted from my phone itself and the hacker had managed to delete the notifications just in time as well. So they essentially had full access to every single detail on my phone and could do whatever they wanted to. They explained how exactly it had been done but I'm not very tech-savvy so I didn't understand a lot of it but I'm sure that people who deal with such things

would be able to explain. So I'm leaving it to the hackers of Reddit to do the explaining. The bottom line was that someone out there had been paid to hack into my phone and that's how my mother-in-law had managed to steal like $40,000 from me over the last few days and then, use that money to try and bribe me. Also that this wedding wouldn't happen. I don't know what sort of crazy monster does something like this, but at least she confessed and we were able to have her arrested.

She's currently awaiting trial in prison along with the hacker she'd hired to do her dirty work. On that day, the wedding started a little late, but we did get married. We were able to hush up what had happened before and even after my husband found out what his mother had done, he told me he wanted to go ahead with the wedding because he wanted that day to be about us and not her which was very sweet of him. I've received all my money back, thankfully, and my phone has been wiped clean. I've also changed all my bank details after that for good measure and I'm definitely going to make sure I'm extra careful what links I click on. Everything else is just fine, but the only problem here is still my mother-in-law.

My husband went to visit her in prison yesterday and came back really upset. He told me that his mother is very, very sorry about what she did and she's well aware that she's going to jail anyway since she confessed right in front of the cops. But she's requesting me to put in a word for her and ask for a more lenient sentence because she doesn't want to end up in prison for like five years or something. My husband also thinks that I should do that because she's old and also because at the end of the day, she is his mother. I couldn't believe he was saying that to me after what she'd done, just so she'd be able to get rid of me. The woman had hired a hacker and then

stolen money from me which she then used to bribe me so I wouldn't marry her son. That is textbook crazy and I don't think I can ever bring myself to forgive someone like that, let alone ask for a more lenient sentence for her. My husband is the love of my life and he was great on the day of the wedding but now that he's met his mother, he's leaning more on her side and I can't stand it. I don't know if I'm being selfish right now or if I'm just being downright cruel, but I don't think her age is enough of a factor for me to care about her. She's just in her early 50s anyway, so it's not like she's very old and even if she was, I still wouldn't do what my husband had asked of me.

I haven't told him about it yet, but I don't have any intentions of going to see her or asking for a more lenient sentence. I'd offer wanting my mother-in-law to get a longer sentence after she hacked into my phone and stole my money which she then used to try and bribe me so I would leave her son. Update 1, hey, I've spoken to my husband about this and I've explained to him that I do not want his mother to get a lesser sentence. The discussion was tough but he understood where I was coming from. He's still kind of upset about it because it is his mother who's in prison right now. His dad passed away a couple of years back so that's his only living parent and of course, he's going to be upset about it for a couple of days at the very least.

The trial is about to begin in a few weeks and since it's a federal crime that she committed, my husband's pretty nervous about what's going to happen. He is helping his mom find a lawyer and hopes that this will be enough for her, but he knows that I'm the victim here and expecting me to stand up for her is going to be really messed up. He understands that and respects my decision. I never expected him to cut his mother off despite what she did because I know that he's a good guy at heart. He would never have been able to just abandon his mother over what she did. I knew that right from the beginning and I didn't expect him to leave her side either.

I don't know if it's right or not, but I don't want him to have to choose. It's weird, but that's really what I think would be the right thing to do. He can do his duties as a son and he can also do his duties as a husband. Also, some of you guys had been wondering what exactly I'd clicked on, so I'm not sure about it, but I think it was a link that I'd received in a text a couple of weeks ago. It had been sent to me by an unknown number and the text said that I needed to update my account details or my account would get blocked so I did so because I thought it was a legit text. I guess that's where I messed up and it was stupid of me to enter my bank

account details on a sketchy looking website without making sure if the text I'd received was authentic or not. That was a huge mistake and I was really lucky that my mother-in-law confessed because otherwise, I think I never would have received my money back. I'd advise all of you guys to also avoid clicking on links or visiting websites that you don't trust. Update 2. So a couple of days have passed and today, the mother of the kid who was responsible for the hacking came by to visit us. Both my husband and I were at home when this happened and we were a little skeptical at first, but we did let her in. She was here to actually apologize for what her son had done and said that he had only done so for a bit of extra cash. Turns out that the hacker was from a really poor

family and his dad had just passed away so he turned to these means to earn some extra money. Usually, he'd just hack into people's ex's accounts and mess with them a little bit as a side hustle, but this time, my mother-in-law had offered him $10,000 to get her job done and he'd accepted it because that was a pretty big amount and he'd be able to help his mom cover some major expenses if he received that amount. So he took up the job without thinking much and that's how he landed in this mess. He's an accessory to the crime so he's looking at two years of imprisonment. his mother was here to just apologize on her son's behalf and nothing else. I accepted the apology because honestly, that kid was just in his early 20s and was dealing

with some serious issues clearly. Besides, he was not the one I knew personally and neither was he responsible for organizing this in the first place so he was not the one I was upset with. My mother-in-law had been the one to put him up to this so if anything, I was more upset with her than some random kid who was just trying to make ends meet. so I told the woman not to worry and even consult her for a bit when she started looking like she was going to cry. After she left, my husband ranted for about half an hour about how ridiculous it was for the woman to come to our house and try to make amends when her son

had screwed everything up for us. I didn't understand why he was so mad at him when it was his mother he should have been mad at. I did say to him that ultimately, the hacker didn't owe us anything but his mom did. He didn't even owe us the basic common decency to not scam me out of our money. Sure, he was a crooked guy for doing whatever it was that he'd been doing so far, but that wasn't any of our business and neither would he had been able to gain access to us at all if it had not been for his mom. She's the one who approached him and got him involved so if my husband wants to be mad at someone, it should be his mother. She presented my details to the guy on a silver platter and made this all happen. The guy who hacked into my

account probably wouldn't even have known me even if it hadn't been for his mom. But he told me that I was getting too emotional and that I should also be equally mad at the guy who actually did the hacking because he was just as involved. And that me consoling his mother when she came by was just ridiculous to him because I should have extended that to his mom as well, but I didn't but was totally fine with consoling a criminal's mother. I reminded him that his mother was a criminal too in the eyes of the law right now, but that set him off and he started shouting at me about how I was being heartless. He accused me of being insensitive and said that he'd already lost one parent and now he was about to lose the other, but all I seemed to care about was whether

his mother got punished or not, which just showed him where my priorities were. I tried to defend myself because I thought he was being harsh there, but it just turned into a big fight. He stormed out a few hours ago and I've been trying to call him, but I can't seem to get to him. His phone is switched off. I don't know how to feel about any of this if I'm being honest. One had I do feel bad for him because I know how close he was to his dad and that he took his death really hard. He wasn't as close with his mother but no matter what, it was his mom, and even if I was in his place, I'd probably feel the same way as him. He's been really on edge lately and I don't know what to do. Our fight today was just stupid because I think I overstepped, too. I knew he was

emotionally struggling to cope with the fact that his mom was probably going to jail for a while. That's not easy for any kid to come to terms with, but he was trying his best. He's also been trying to balance his time between me, visiting his mom and work. He says his mother regrets whatever she did and has even said that she wants to apologize to me but I don't want to visit her. She's created this whole mess for me and I don't know how to deal with it anymore. I really, really don't want to lose my husband. We're having a rough phase right now but I know we can get over it if we try and he seems

willing to try, both with me and his mother. I feel like a total jerk for fighting with him today and pushing him over the edge because he really doesn't deserve any of what is happening to him. He's been my support system all through these years but now I feel like I'm failing him. So please you guys, any advice on how to deal with this is welcome right now because I don't want to give up on my marriage. He isn't giving up on me and neither has he given up on his mother yet. And I just do not want to let him go.

Update 3 so, my husband came back home really late last night after our first. fight. I stayed up for him till midnight, waiting for him, but then I fell asleep on the couch. I only woke up when I heard him unlocking the door and the noise of the keys woke me up. It was late so we didn't talk last night but this morning, after a quiet breakfast, we decided to talk it through. He's the one who initiated the conversation and told me that last night, he'd gone to his mother's house. His mom still lives in the childhood home where he grew up and he knew where his mom kept the spare keys so he found it easy to get in. Technically it was breaking and entering, but I didn't say anything about it because I could

see him getting all teary-eyed while talking about it. He said that he'd gone in to just be on his own for a while because all of a sudden, he missed his dad. He knew that if his father was still around then none of this would have happened. He probably would have been able to knock some sense into his wife and made sure that I felt welcome in the family as well. But now, without him, he was struggling to hold his family together. He felt like he was failing at everything, a son, a husband, and even himself.

He told me that he'd gone into his parents' bedroom and flipped through his old photo albums for a while before taking a nap in his childhood bedroom and after that, he finally came back home. He admitted that he was going through a lot mentally and apologized for the way he'd been behaving for the last couple of days, ever since he visited his mother first. He told me that his father had made him promise that he'd take care of his mom after he was gone and that just kept playing in his head on a loop because evidently, he hadn't been doing a good job at that. While talking, my husband broke down and I hugged him. I consoled him for like half an hour while he let his feelings out and even I cried a little with him because I'd honestly

thought that I was going to lose him. I also told him my side of things and explained to him how I'd been feeling about all of this. I'd never had anything against my mother-in-law in the beginning but what she did with the money and all the hacking was crazy. There were just no two. There were just no ways about it and I couldn't bring myself to look past that. Plus it's not like she'd ever been nice to me in the past either, so I just didn't want to be around her or forgive her. I didn't have it in me. I respected that he wanted to help his mom out, but I wasn't going to encourage it and the only thing I could do was stay out of it altogether. This was basically just a conflict of interest for us and we needed it to treat it as such. He agreed with that and told me that his

mother definitely deserved whatever legal punishment was coming her way because she had indeed screwed up. He couldn't help her out with that and whatever he could do for her, he'd already done. His duty as a son had been to make sure she was doing all right and he'd visited her every couple of days to make sure of that. He'd also put her in touch with a good lawyer and was even helping her out by paying for it so there was nothing more that he could do or intended to do either. Once that was out in the open, I felt a lot more relieved. I realized that he didn't want to leave me over this and wasn't giving up on our marriage so soon. I even asked him to double check and he looked surprised because he said he hadn't even been

considering it. For him, this was just a rough phase and we'd have to power through it but that didn't mean that he loved me any less. He knew I was right in doing what I'd done and he completely understood where I was coming from. He said that he hadn't forgotten what he'd promised in the vows and he was going to stick to it which made me tear up a little and then there was another half an hour of us just crying it out and hugging because we were so, so emotional about everything.

The first week after our wedding wasn't filled with marital bliss like we'd expected, but we'd almost immediately been thrown headfirst into a bunch of really challenging situations and now we had to figure out how to deal with these things without hurting one another. But I know that as long as we love each other, we can make it work. I don't know what the future holds for us and I don't know how we're going to deal with it but what I do know is that we're going to face whatever comes our way together. That's what marriage is all about and I'm sure that we can make the best of this situation. now, we're thinking about marriage counseling to help make sense of our feelings so we don't end

up lashing out at each other like we did last evening. My husband bottles his feelings up and then has an outburst over something petty while I do the opposite and just keep talking even when I realize that he's getting agitated which makes me seem insensitive to his problems and maybe a marriage counselor will be able to help us out with this. Update 4, hey, so it's been a couple of weeks now, and despite what a lot of people believed, my husband and I are doing a lot better now. The has helped us a lot and we're also seeing individual therapists and it makes a heck of a difference. Most of you advised me to break off the marriage and to leave my husband, but I'm sorry, I love him too much to just leave. I know this wouldn't be the best move for most people,

but I know this is the best move for me personally. He's a good son and a great husband and that's all that matters to me. His mother's facing time, about three years for what she did, but she might get out sooner if she behaves herself, which I think she will because she seems terrified and has been reduced to a shadow of the woman she used to be. I actually kind of felt bad for her when I saw her recently and I've forgiven her for her stupid move now. It's better to just forgive and move on than hold stupid grudges, especially when the person's actually going to jail and being punished for their screw-up. So I think it's about time I let this go from my heart and when she finally gets out, I might actually go to see her too. Or maybe even sooner, I don't know. I just hope that

we're all able to move past this sometime in the future.