Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
She's Gonna Scam You - The Hayley Philpot story
Sat, 01 Feb 2025
This is the story of Hayley Philpot, the Melbourne real estate agent who scammed Mr. and Mrs. Bennett out of their life savings
Chapter 1: What happens when Mr. Bennett is diagnosed with dementia?
So one day, boom, this guy gets hit with dementia. His name is Mr. Bennett. And Mr. Bennett lives in Melbourne with his wife, this woman, Mrs. Bennett. So Mr. Bennett gets hit with dementia. And Mrs. Bennett doesn't really have the skill set to take care of him anymore. So unfortunately, she decides she's going to have to put him in a nursing home. And in doing so, she needs to sell their house.
Chapter 2: How does Haley Philpot become involved with the Bennetts?
So she goes to a real estate agent to help her with this, this woman, Haley. So she asks Haley to help sell their home and Haley's like, yeah, I'll help. And she gets right to work. She sets it all up. She lists their house on the market. But then over time, Haley, she starts helping them with things outside of selling their home. Like they're trying to pick out a nursing home for Mr. Bennett.
Chapter 3: What services does Haley provide beyond real estate?
So she's like driving them around to different nursing homes to help them make a decision. And this is a huge benefit to the Bennetts because they don't have any other family around. So they really appreciate what Haley's doing for them. But then Haley starts to get a little greedy. Whatever money she was going to make helping them sell their house, I guess it isn't enough.
Chapter 4: How does Haley gain control over the Bennetts' finances?
Because one day Haley goes to them and she offers to help them with something beyond real estate. She wants to help them manage their day-to-day finances. And the Bennetts, they can't keep up with all this accounting and paying bills, so they're like, alright. And that is when, unfortunately, Mrs. Bennet hands power of attorney over their finances over to Haley. So, what does Haley do?
Chapter 5: What are Haley's spending habits with the Bennetts' money?
Well, she accesses the couple's internet banking, and she adds their debit card to her phone wallet. And then she starts spending. So she's over here hitting up clothing stores and restaurants. She's buying the expensive kind of makeup. She's living a pretty good life off of their money. And eventually even Mrs. Bennett starts to notice a little.
Chapter 6: How does Mrs. Bennett react to Haley's lifestyle changes?
Like suddenly Haley's wearing cashmere coats all the time and her hair is all professionally done. But then Haley thinks, you know what? A new car would be kind of nice too. So she uses the Bennett's money to make payments on a Mercedes Benz. And one time Haley even picks Mrs. Bennett up in this new Benz and she's like, hey, what do you think of my new ride?
Chapter 7: What measures does Haley take to hide her spending from the Bennetts?
And Mrs. Bennett's like, eh, it's too flashy. And of course she doesn't realize it's her money that paid for that car. So anyway, this goes on for a while, and Hailey just keeps spending.
She gets beauty treatments and a new iPhone and a new MacBook, and the Bennetts don't fully catch on because Hailey has gone into their banking info and changed the address so that all the Bennetts' bank statements are redirected to her own home address. So the Bennetts never see any bank statements and they have no idea the little bit of savings they have is slowly disappearing.
But then it gets worse. One day, Haley goes to Mrs. Bennet and she makes up a story and she's like, oh no, you're being investigated by the government. And she tells them that this fake investigation is going to cause them to lose their pension.
But then she tells Mrs. Bennett that she needs to pay her $40,000 Australian dollars so that she can pay the government off or something to save them from losing their pensions. And of course, Mrs. Bennett is scared. Like, she doesn't want to lose her pension. So she's like, sure, whatever you need to do to help us get out of this. Here's $40,000. And so this scam keeps going on for over a year.
Hailey takes money from the Bennett's bank account and she just buys herself whatever she wants. Real estate agents be shady like that sometimes. Until one day, Mrs. Bennett, she's probably chilling at home or something, And she suddenly realizes, damn, bro, I haven't seen a bank statement in a long ass time. That's really sus, no cap. And so she's like, I better go check this out.
So she asks her caregiver, because I guess she has a caregiver, to give her a ride to the local bank. So she gets to the bank and she's talking to the bank staff and she's like, yo, chat, where my bank statement's at? And the bank is like, hey, we've been sending them to you. And that is when the bank staff shows her copies of her past bank statements.
And that's when Mrs. Bennett sees all this crazy that Haley's been buying and she realizes she's been getting scammed. Over the last 15 months, Haley had made over 98 different transactions from the Bennett's accounts and spent nearly a hundred thousand Australian dollars of their money. And Mrs. Bennett sees this and she is pissed. So then bam, she reports Haley to the police.
And so police, they eventually bring her in and they question her and Haley's like, I didn't steal anything from anyone. And she tells them that Mrs. Bennett had actually given her permission to take $100,000 from her bank account and spend it however she wants. And Mrs. Bennett hears about this and she's like, that lying ass bop got that brain right.
But then Haley also claims that yes, she took the money, but that she had planned on paying Mrs. Bennett back. Sure, Haley. Anyway, Haley gets charged and she takes a plea deal. And surprisingly, she only gets three months in jail and she's ordered to repay the money she stole. Now, she hasn't gone to jail yet because the case is currently in appeal.
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