It is time to get solar powered. We welcome you to another episode of the solar powered podcast. My name is Ryan Hall from loyal hearts media and it is truly incredible to be back. I've been away from this microphone for for some time now. My uploads have been a little bit more inconsistent than I would have liked. I blame that on a few things, but, primarily, my depression has been has been kicking my ass lately. But I have recorded podcast about that before.
So these things happen, and we let them happen. But we press on. And I realized during the recording of my most recent episode that my that my beloved Blue Yeti microphone has gone to has gone to meet its maker. It has been a it's been a long time coming for that thing. Although, it might be salvageable, but I can't record anything on it right now. And I'll just leave it at that.
Today, I wanna speak a little about how scary it can be, how exhilarating it can be, but most of all, how healing it can be to share your story. February has taken on quite the interesting role in my life as of late. Most people know that it was February 8, 2009 that my mom, then my mom passed away at the just terribly, terribly young age of 59. A terribly young age of 59.
And, of course, February 8th is also, I believe, become a kind of a prideful day for me because it was on February 8th, just 2 weeks ago, that I spoke at a I spoke at a virtual summit that was hosted by my very dear friend Elizabeth Hill called Soul Discovery. And I spoke about how finding your voice and finding your people can help in sharing your story, of course, can help you find a new level of self love.
And in that presentation, I spoke a little about just how scary it can be to to just get super vulnerable, to share your story, to share a story that might be embarrassing, to share a story that might be that might, you know, make you look bad. But, really, I guess, how I don't know how how magical it can be in the long run to to share your story even if it makes you look bad. And with all that said, that's what I wanna do right now.
And straps strap yourself in because that's maybe a bit of a doozy. A few weeks ago, I received a Facebook Messenger message from what I thought was an old friend of mine. When I say an old friend of mine, I mean, this was somebody that I've known since kindergarten. And it has been a long time since I have been in kindergarten, let me tell you. But this message was out of the blue. I haven't heard from him in a long time.
He occasionally would comment on, you know, Facebook posts that I make, but he would rarely reach out. But I get this messagier message from him. Talking about, hey. We're we're doing a Valentine's Day giveaway with your Cash App so I can send you a blessing. What the fuck, man? That was cool. I could always use a little extra money. So it started the ball rolling. I gave this person, who clearly wasn't my friend. I'll get to that in a minute. But I gave this person my Cash App.
And then he started getting real persistent. So I finally asked I mean, using a lot of urgency. But I finally asked and and this was not an insignificant amount of money either. It was a 4 digit payment here. And I figure I could use that to put a deposit down or even a down payment on a new place to live. But I finally asked what do I need to do to get this payment? Because he kept pushing. He kept pushing, and finally, I broke.
So what the scam was, and make no mistake about it, it was a scam, but I did not I couldn't even though my intuition was telling me, Ryan, you need to be careful with this, I was tempted by the by the amount of this money. And then the scammer told me. The scammer told me that what I would have to do would be to go into my go into my Cash App and send him a $100 in Bitcoin. Now to any logical person, this would have been a I don't know.
This would have been a not just a red flag, but a red flag with blink with, like, blinking lights. So I said, it's like you're wanting me to send you money. And then I was returned with a message that included a gift of something like, to receive, to receive a withdrawal, you must make a deposit or or something like that. Something very manipulative. I put a stop on it, and I didn't do it at that time. Now let's flash forward to Super Bowl Sunday.
By the way, I assume the Super Bowl was a fun game to watch because I damn sure didn't get the chance to watch a single play of it. I got a message. And that message was, are you still in? And I figured, what the hell? A $100 isn't gonna kill me. So I did it. And then I kept asking, where's my money? Where's my money? Oh, you gotta do one more thing for me. There's another 250 that you need to get, and it was getting very, very persuasive. Now this was all done over Facebook Messenger.
Eventually, I kept getting I kept getting persistent. Where's my money? Where's my money? And then he did something that the scammer did something that completely just has still screwed me up to this day over a week later. And by the way, like a fool, I sent the other 250. But let's pull back. Once I did that, I'm like, where's my money? And then this person said, here's a this person gave me a phone number. This was a South Florida phone number.
The I don't know what the bookkeeper wants to speak to you because I got an email that looked very much like a Cash App payment was being sent to me. But, apparently, there was a but no, apparently, about it. To receive this payment, which, of course, it was all bullshit. But to receive this payment, I needed to pay another $500.
So getting getting back to that, he said that the treasurer or bookkeeper, whatever the hell it was, said that he wanted to speak to me, that he wanted to do it over WhatsApp. Now that was a red flag right there. I mean, I'm just all full of red flags. But did I listen? Nope. So we got on we got on WhatsApp, and this person I hate to even call him a human, but this person can't believe I'm about to say this publicly. But this person, his English was very poor. Okay? His English was very bad.
He was like, hey. We're going to put this payment. We're going to attach this payment to your Facebook. Now, again, this was another red flag, but I'm too deep in it now. I'm thinking there's a lot of money coming out of this, but it never did, and it never was. So this person was like, let's put it on your Facebook, and he started asking me for all this personal information.
And I'm like, I really, yeah, I I really don't want like, this started ringing off a lot of bells, and my adrenaline was going at this point. Now keep in mind, I'm at work when this was going down. That he gave me he fed me the sign about attaching the payment to Facebook, the $500. So like a fool, I gave in. And that's how my Facebook got hacked. But as it's going forward, this person's English on WhatsApp started getting better and better.
But the urgency started growing and growing and growing. It got to the point where I'm where he's insulting me, talking about, are you playing me? And then and and then, eventually, I knew I had to sleep. I knew I had to to stop because I knew that money wasn't gonna happen. So I finally blocked that number on WhatsApp. And after a while, I got my Facebook back. I still don't have my Instagram back, which is another problem. I will speak about that here in a bit, but It was embarrassing.
It makes me look very bad. It cost me money and not an insignificant amount of money either. And that It's just not a good situation. My purpose in sharing all this with you is to give you To give you a bit of a heads up, human beings, no matter how intelligent, no matter how street smart, no matter how book smart, no matter how smart they are, human beings can be easily manipulated. When their heart, their wallet, And past, I don't know, past traumas come into play. I'm a very smart person.
I'm an intelligent man, but I made a dumb mistake. And this podcast was the ultimate example, I believe, of me showing myself me showing myself forgiveness over what happened. I have forgiven myself, and I'm putting it behind me. And I'm moving forward with power and with purpose, but most of all, with love for myself and for my fellow kings and queens. So if you're listening, be careful. You can trust, but you can't well, yeah, you can trust again. But just keep your eyes wide open.
I let my guard down, and it cost me. And I pray it doesn't cost you. I think I've done enough damage for this episode. Thank you so much for listening to the solar powered podcast. If you have any questions or if you wanna find out more about me, you can always follow me on my social media at ryanhallrights on Twitter and Facebook or on Instagram at my new Instagram handle at royal hearts media. You can follow the show on Instagram by going to solarpoweredpodcast.
That's instagram.com/ solarpoweredpodcast. I will, of course, put the links in the description of this podcast, or if you just want to keep it traditional, send me an old fashioned email, [email protected]. But that will do it for this episode of the solar powered podcast. Until we meet again, this is Ryan Hall saying thank yous for listening so long for now. I truly love you all, and go get solar powered. Take care of yourselves, and eat