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Living with someone requires a lot of trust, especially when money is involved.

One Navy sailor learned that after renting a house with his friend and the friend’s girlfriend.

Before the friend deployed to Iraq, he promised to keep paying part of the rent while the other two watched his belongings.

Then, his girlfriend claimed that money had stopped and made the sailor cover a larger share.

Ten months later, he discovered she’d been collecting the payments the entire time.

Read on to see how it all played out.

I got scammed out of $2,500 by my roommate

I got scammed out of $2,500 by my roommate.

This happened about 16–17 years ago while I was serving in the U.S. Navy. I had just made E-4, and my friend—who I’d roomed with during training—wanted the three of us (him, his girlfriend, and me) to rent a house together. We had all met during training and were good friends.

Before we signed the lease, he told me he had just received orders to deploy to Iraq for 10 months, which would be almost the entire lease.

His friend agreed to still pay part of the rent.

Because of that, he asked if he could pay only $500 of the $2,600 monthly rent. His reasoning was that we’d be watching over his belongings while he was gone, and it would help us afford the house. I agreed.

After he left for pre-deployment training, the first month’s rent came due. I figured I’d owe $1,050, minus what I paid for electricity and cable, which were both in my name.

Instead, she told me he wasn’t paying the $500 after all and that we would have to split the full $2,600 evenly between the two of us. I had no reason to doubt her—I thought I knew her well and considered her a good friend—so I took her at her word.

Then, he found out the whole thing had been a lie.

Fast forward 10 months. My friend returned from Iraq, and I found out not only had he been paying her the agreed-upon $500 every month, he had actually been giving her even more than that.

When I confronted her, she came up with excuses.

She claimed it was because I had the two upstairs bedrooms while she had the master bedroom, or because I had the second garage space—even though my sedan didn’t even fit in the short driveway, while her Jeep did.

Now, he can’t help but think that he should’ve turned her in for it.

Those arguments might have made sense if we’d agreed to them beforehand, but we never had. The reality is that she lied to me and pocketed about $2,500 that should have reduced my share of the rent.

I’ve always wondered whether I could have taken her to small claims court and won. I had some text messages that supported my side, but I was young, angry, and just wanted to be done with the whole situation. I chalked it up as an expensive lesson and moved on.

Looking back now, though, I sometimes wonder if I let it go too easily. She probably could have used being held accountable.

Oh wow! Imagine doing that to your friend. That’s terrible.

Let’s check out what the people over at Reddit think about her scam.

It’s too old for this now.

Well, it does fit.

He should’ve done this.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about neighbors who intentionally tank an open house sale because they want to buy the property themselves.

Yep. Big mistake.

He probably should’ve taken her to small claims court when he still had the messages and everything was fresh.

It’s pretty clear that she didn’t misunderstand the agreement or make an honest mistake.

Instead, she lied for months and kept money that should’ve lowered his share of the rent.

Still, $2,500 taught him a lesson about trust that he probably never forgot.