Steve Perry imposter has a draw that some find criminally irresistible

One might ask themselves, "What would I need to do to come up with a Steve Perry impersonation?" The next logical step would not be, "How can impersonate the former Journey vocalist and then turn that into me stealing tens of thousands of dollars?" Seems silly, right? And yet, someone did just that.

The more shocking bit might be how Perry still has the kind of positive name recognition where people 1) remember him, and 2) want to give him money. That happened recently in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, where a woman responded to a Facebook message from "Steve Perry" and ended up sending him a lot of money, sadly.

Part of the message was that the Perry imposter said he "needed a woman in his life" (not named Sherrie, we can assume) and asked for money to be wired to them (why not just use Venmo?) as well as some $50,000 in gift cards. Of course, it is unfair to blame the victim in this case; they might have just been a huge Journey fan and would do anything to help poor Perry.

Imposter of former Journey vocalist Steve Perry steals a lot of money from fan

Still, and here is a warning to all you kids out there, if someone you don't know on social media is trying to dupe you into sending them money, don't do it. If you know someone in need and want to help them, that's fine. But it is best to actually know the person or know someone who knows him.

In this case, the person (or persons) is still not known. There could be a dozen Steve Perrys running around the internet asking you to have some open arms and faithfully keep giving them some money. If that is the case, ask for the agent's number and then call to verify. Or just deleting the message might be even better.

According to Cleveland's WKYC, the victim gave the Steve Perry imposter $72,000 in wire transfers and then the extra $50k in gift cards. The wire transfer money went to different people in different states, so that might have been a red flag. Let's just hope the victim had so much money that what they gave the imposter was only a drop in the bucket to their overall wealth.

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