Simon miller widower HIV 3 Kids Cambodia - Genuine

[Jack Hna]

I am hoping this person is a scam because the plight of this guy and his 3 young motherless children seems very bad and yet his kids look very happy.

 

The guy must be legit because he is very bad at the fund raising. I could possibly help him out anonymously as I am sure others would too but I need to know he is legit and not a scam or something worse.

 

https://m.facebook.com/simon.miller.31521301?lst=539540363%3A100028290995479%3A1602539338&ref=m_notif&notif_t=group_highlights

 

Any info on this chap appreciated. Standard open source intelligence already performed.

 

 

 

 

[Matzzon]

Really? 3 kids, a widower and no work as well as he been catching HIV. This guy seem to really know how to mess up his life.

I assume it´s his children. Are they free from HIV? If it is his children, then they are also UK citizens. The best this guy can do is to go back home and take the children with him.

 

He should also know that a person starting a life abroad, always should have something to fall back on. The smallest safetynet is always tickets home for him and family.

 

This guy just let is spiral out of control and get to far before waking up.

[Poet]

Sad to say, this appears to be a genuine tragedy that has morphed into a scam.

The main giveaway is that he solicited someone else's UK bank account to receive the donations, claiming that his Halifax bank account was closed due to inactivity. Highly unlikely.

He claims that he can no longer teach in schools because of his HIV lesions, but could teach online if he had the money for "reliable equipment" and furniture. This is nonsense. Such work, which pays between $15 and $20 per hour, could be done with practically any old computer, chromebook, or tablet perched on top of a box. He has apparently taught online in the past. Any man in his situation, who was generally believed by other expats to be sincere, could ask around if anyone had an old computer they could donate or even just lend to him until his first payment. Almost everyone has some sort of device they no longer use.

If he absolutely had to buy this "reliable equipment" new, a Chromebook would cost around $200, surely not an impossible amount to borrow from your friends collectively IF you have not already burned them in some other way.

Just to be clear, it is a tragic situation but his explanation of how he intends to use the donations makes no sense. It would be far simpler, easier, and less dangerous for his family to quietly organize a computer and start working. As a native English speaker with teaching experience, he could start earning money immediately.

Instead, he has been setting up various donation pages since August and repeatedly requesting help on Facebook and YouTube. His wife appears to have died in March. He and the kids are living with her mother. Again, it is a horrible situation but, as they both had HIV, he had time to plan for this, at least to the extent of making sure that he had $200 for a Chromebook or second-hand laptop so that he could keep making around $100 per day. That would be a decent enough income in Cambodia. As a father to 3 kids, he had a duty to do that.

Instead, he appears to be burning through all his connections to generate an income and turning the tragedy itself into a business.

 

[Orton Rd]

You are right, the Mrs teaches online with a 4 year old phone, you don't need expensive equipment

[Jack Hna]

Interesting views so far.

The problem is I do not see any history of a family. Photos of him and his late wife with the children. Images with the children look manufactured and all videos show no sign of the children. I am not sure about it at all but I'm even more skeptical as I do not see anyone actually helping him. I can believe the halifax problem I know banks began doing this type of thing last year or so. 

[Poet]

12 minutes ago, Orton Rd said:

You are right, the Mrs teaches online with a 4 year old phone, you don't need expensive equipment

Right, and he clearly has a reasonably good phone, a good connection, and a quiet environment for making the begging videos.

[Poet]

9 minutes ago, Jack Hna said:

I can believe the halifax problem I know banks began doing this type of thing last year or so. 

Perhaps I have been lucky over the past decade or so, but my experience has been that both Halifax and Natwest are happy to keep your account open if you keep just a fiver in there. Meanwhile, new wave banks such as Revolut and N26 let you sign up from anywhere in the world, as long as you have a European address they can send the card to.

I suppose he could genuinely be unable to organize a bank account, but asking to funnel donations through someone else's account does sound suspect.

[Poet]

17 minutes ago, Jack Hna said:

The problem is I do not see any history of a family. Photos of him and his late wife with the children. Images with the children look manufactured and all videos show no sign of the children.

Very good point about there being no kids in the video. Given how crudely he deploys mentions of his kids in the begging videos, it makes no sense for him not to show them, especially as they are all supposedly living together in his mother-in-law's house. It appears that his Fb account's main photo, of him with his son, is actually quite an old photo, at least a couple of years old. Compared to the videos, he looks about a decade younger.

[Jack Hna]

Somehing not feel right about this guy. He comes across very genuine but his accent is skewed too but I hear the scouse then he sounds Dutch in places. I guess that happens and probably made sense to scrap that accent being a teacher. Maybe there's a few like this about so it is nothing new. I met a few expats from Cambodia via Vietnam a while back. All seemed a bit downtrodden. Explained to this puff smoking chap had not had a drag in 5 years and he took me for some kind of scrounger. Took a puff of this absurd <deleted> and one was enough was the worst smoke I ever tasted. Got higher off the tuc lao smoke.

[Sheryl]

HIV can be treated with medications allowing one to live a perfectly normal life and work. Does not ring true.

[scubascuba3]

38 minutes ago, Sheryl said:

HIV can be treated with medications allowing one to live a perfectly normal life and work. Does not ring true.

Presumably he would need to buy them though? and he seems short of money

[Sheryl]

 HIV meds are free in Cambodia at government hospitals

 

Or he could return  to his own country and be treated there.