Complaint Review: Gaye Campbell - johnson city Tennessee

My case concerns a woman who I became acquainted with because our daughters were friends for over 5 years. After my fiance & I broke up she started coming around asking me to go out socially & kept telling me I needed to get out & have fun, which was true. So we became friends & went out almost every weekend & I also helped her (since we were both single moms) by cooking extra food & bringing it by whenever she was short on food in her home that she shared with her mentally disabled mother & her 13 yr old daughter.

The incident began on January 7, 2012 when Gaye Campbell came to my home & told me she was short $500. on her house payment. She said that she was financing through the landlord & that she could not miss a payment; her tax refund would be in by February & she could pay me back then. I wrote a check directly to her landlord for $750. and she handed me $250. cash. Also she wanted me to accompany her to North Carolina to appear in court for a traffic summons & asked for money for gas. I told her I could pay the summons online via credit card and save gas & she could add it to what she owed me that was $223.90.

When February came she said that her ex husband claimed their daughter and the IRS was holding up her tax refund but he would be in trouble since she was in the right. We continued to socialize and she introduced me to her boyfriend's mother as her best friend. I never thought she would not pay me. On March 9, 2012 she called me crying & saying she doesn't know why things keep happening to her since she never did anything to hurt anyone.She informed me that she would be evicted by the landlord if she did not pay the $750. for March & would be forced to move back in with her ex who she claimed was controlling & yelled at her all the time.She said she was financing this home through the landlord & would lose all her payments.
I suggested a few friends & family members who she said she would call. Later when I went to her home she cried & told me that no one would answer her when she asked for the money & she would be evicted for sure along with her child & mother who was mentally disabled. She told me her ex hated her mom & this was going to be "hell" All I could think of was her child because at the time she was my child's friend & had spent a lot of time with us & slept over weekends. I was up front with her & told her I could not afford to give her anything unless I KNEW I would get it back. I said I had received my tax refund but if I let her borrow money I would have to see her tax papers to know I would be repaid.She dug through a drawer & I saw the tax papers & remember she was getting somewhere around $4000 so I agreed & wrote the check for $750 to her landlord.
 
During the month of April she kept putting me off saying she was getting grant money for school if the IRS didn't send her money & she said definitely by the 16th of April i would have money.

She took 2 trips in April; one to Dollywood & one to Myrtle Beach and that's when I knew I wasn't going to get the money back. She kept texting me from those trips saying her boyfriend was paying for everything & I asked her if she could ask him to lend her money to pay me back. She said she would, then later told me he was broke from paying for those trips.

She had a friend named John that she said had money & was going to lend her money to pay me & had me wait at her house til midnight one night saying he was going to come by with the money. I later realized she was "fake texting" and it was her boyfriend who was coming by not John & after saying to me how John was so unreliable I left.

She told everyone she worked at the Johnson City Medical Center as a surgical LPN & told me she would be able to pay from her "larger" paycheck now I find out she doesn't work there & she was let go from her last job at a nursing home where she worked as a CNA. There is no school grant either.

After being avoided so many times & put off she texted me that John was having a get together at his boathouse but she didn't tell me where it was. I found out through a mutual friend how to get there & John's phone number. I showed up there & she said " Oh I was texting you so I could come pick you up" I didn't want to discuss our problem in front of John & his friends so I took her to the side & told her I needed the money & was aware she was avoiding me. She denied that saying she would never treat a friend that way & that if the tax money or school grant money did not come she would pay me part of her mother's SS check by the 1st week of May. The time came & went & i was pretty much chasing her around town; told to show up somewhere then she never would be there.

On May 5, 2012 after going to her house at 7am and knocking for 15 minutes I texted her & she said she was at the hospital with her mom. She told me to come there & she would take $80 from the ATM for me. I waited in the hospital lobby after she said she was talking to drs. After 1 hr she texted asking if I was still down there & I replied I had no choice I needed the money. When I asked what she was going to do she texted "wait for drs" so I went up to her mother's room & found the mom sitting up in bed, smiling & laughing & talking to a visitor. When I asked where Gaye was she told me she left an hour ago or more. So she wasn't there but texted me as if she was. I called her then & was put off she kept saying she couldn't talk then texted saying she would give me money later. My daughter & I drove to the hospital before attending a birthday party that night & Gaye texted that she was not at the hospital but her child was & she sent her down with $50 cash for me. I told the child to tell her mother that I had a paper & would deduct the $50 from the rest she owed.

That was the last time I saw her and she would not answer texts or her door. When a friend told me that she could be in trouble for misuse of SSI funds by not using her mom's check to pay rent i wrote her a letter telling her I would file a report to them & I wanted my dvd player that she had & I would be filing all papers Tuesday unless she made arrangements with me.I took it to her house May 23, 2012 at 9:30am. Her car was there but she wouldn't answer my knocking & I left the envelope with the letter plus the paper for small claims court taped to her car window. After 30 minutes I left & texted telling her I knew she was in there to which she answered "ur right im trying to get ready come back & get ur dvd player i will leave it on the porch & leave u some money next wk like fri" I told her do not leave the dvd player on the porch I am not going back again after banging on the door for 15 min. Then I texted that I wanted half the money before Tuesday 29th or I would file. She replied "ok fine since ur doin that i wont worry bout next fri I'll let the court set up wat i pay a month"
That was the last contact I have had with her & I found out through public records she has at least 6 judgements against her.

She knows the court system & will get out of paying me.