Warning

Hi guys, this news has been making the rounds on MUA and other nail polish blogs so I thought I would share my thoughts on the matter.

A blogger and frequent nail board member on MUA, ManateeMama, has been accused of scamming several nail board members out of a lot of money by having the rare Essie Starry Starry Night polish as a "Buy It Now" option on ebay for $50. The problem is, once the money had been taken, no polish was ever taken out. It's calculated that she has stolen more than $500 which is considered internet fraud.

This is ManateeMama's response:

"After a sleepless, terrified, and torturing night I have gotten to the bottom of this "little" mistake you have all made.

I am seriously PISSED off that nobody even bothered to message me at ALL before posting...because it would have saved me a lot of detective work and heartache.

Since nobody messaged me telling me what "linked" me to all this mess I had to call everyone I know asking around and dig through my entire email box, pm box etc. SO, I am guessing Dina and Don are the people you have used to link me to this CRIME?

These people are my degenerate cousins BY MARRIAGE so don't get confused and think I am actually related to them by blood. I set up Dina's Paypal account for her about a year ago. Dina is a [edited] and owes me A LOT of money. A LOT. They have run similar scams to this before, on ebay and forums, which i DID not know about when i helped her!

So, the reason you witch hunting bandwagoners have incorrectly ruined my reputation FOREVER is because Dina sometimes pays for things for me out of HER pay pal balance because she can't afford to pay me back in cash... SO, I have gotten some things from the NB marketplace with the paypal account [email address removed] before, also ebay etc.

I haven't ever sold anything to any of you as I don't even have my OWN paypal account and I dont have access to Dina's I just CALL HER and tell her the info, who to pay, how much etc.

I dont want them to have my address so I ALWAYS USE MY FIANCES WORK ADDRESS. So that is the reason for that. Otherwise they would be knocking on my door asking me for money all the time.

SO how was I victimized when I dont have a paypal account? well i called my cousin and asked her to buy SSN, she said ok, obviously since she was the seller she didnt buy it and lied and said she did. I called her and told her to open an ebay claim when Things went sour. The End.

I have called and cussed out my cousins who obviously got this idea from me from overhearing me talking about rare polish and how much it sells for on ebay. So that part is my fault. I told them to fix this now. The people they ripped off are people that used to be my friends. I told her she has until this weekend to fix it before I call the cops on her myself! I have her ACTUAL address.

Now, that I have had to get into these very personal family details I really would rather not have shared I advise any of you that have filed FALSE POLICE REPORTS against me to rethink your actions!!!

I am in total shock how fast you all turned on me without even a note of doubt. WOW.

If you think I am a liar fine, what reason you have is a mystery to me but fine"

Obviously, there are two sides to each story and no, I don't know ManateeMama personally or have had any interaction with her even on the nail board. From an objective point of view, there is just something really shady about this. From a personal point of view, I just don't trust this explanation. This is beyond simple scamming, this is fraud. If anyone frequents the nail board on MUA, you will know that the nail board is full of the nicest people around and it's sickening how someone could take advantage of that. Choose what you want to believe, but please be careful when it comes to the internet and in buying anything that is rare and hard-to-find. If you ever run into an issue of scamming or any other internet crime, be sure to report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (or IC3), which is a joint venture between the FBI, National White Collar Crime Center, and the Bureau of Justice Association.

And for anyone who asks why anyone would ever pay $50 for a nail polish...Essie Starry Starry Night is gorgeous. End of story.