Scamanda Podcast: All About the Viral Cancer Scammer Saga

glamour.com:

about a woman who was able to convince her friends and family that she had cancer for nearly a decade — convincing them to give her more than $100,000 for “treatment” in the process— has captivated listeners.Amanda Riley, a former teacher and principal from Northern California, was last May to five years in federal prison for wire fraud in the scheme, which she pled guilty to in October 2021.

From 2012 to 2019, Riley had told friends, family, and internet strangers, via social media and a blog, that she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the US Attorney’s office said, adding she “used her presence on these sites to ‘document’ her nonexistent medical condition, and to aggressively solicit donations, supposedly to cover her medical expenses.”In order to keep up her scheme, Riley shaved her head, falsified medical records, and even sued a local journalist, Nancy Muscatello, who had grown suspicious of her and began to dig into Riley and her blog.

All told, federal authorities identified 349 people who had given Riley a total of more than $105,000 over the seven-year period.Journalist and host of Lionsgate Sound first began investigating Riley and her case in 2021, and after years of reporting released “,” a deep-dive podcast into Riley and her scheme.

Since its release on May 15, the show has become the top show on Apple Podcasts multiple times during its eight-episode season, become the subject of its own dedicated subreddit, and sparked countless discussions on TikTok and Twitter about Riley and her twisted web of deceit.Listeners can’t get enough of the podcast’s truly outrageous moments (at one point, Riley claimed that she was able to inject an experimental chemo drug at home), but also have been shocked by the brazenness with.