It's difficult to determine if this really happened, but it certainly is a good story. I stumbled on it at metafilter.com, and it starts as a simple request with a long thread of replies.
Here's a reproduction of the original post:
A Russian friend of mine may be in a dangerous situation in Washington, DC.
My friend and former student K arrived in DC yesterday, along with a friend. She came over on some kind of travel exchange program put together by a Russian travel agency called 'Aloha'. They paid about 3K for this program.
The program promised a job offer in advance, but didn't deliver. They said they would send one via email, but failed there, too.
Her contact in the USA barely speaks English, doesn't answer her calls but does answer mine. He has asked her and her friend to meet in NYC tonight around midnight, with promises of hostess work in a lounge. Yes, I know how horrific that sounds- that's why I am working all possible angles here.
She is not going to NYC but I need some help handling and understanding how to handle this- I have a friend helping them with a cheap hotel for the night, but that's all at the moment. I am presently driving to LA and could fly her and her friend to meet me there on Saturday, but couldn't house them indefinitely. I will be monitoring this thread over the next hour.
posted by fake to travel & transportation (242 comments total) 649 users marked this as a favorite
Not sure what to make of the poster's moniker: "fake." But the commenters seem to have detected this as a scheme to get these girls to work in a strip joint to do who-knows-what. And by the end of the thread the commenters are congratulating one another for the good job of saving those girls. It certainly makes for an interesting read.
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