'Where’s My $1,100?': Woman Goes Viral For Confronting Man Who Scammed Her On A Cruise Ship
A woman’s video of her confronting the man who scammed her on a cruise has gone viral on social media. The clip, originally posted on Facebook by the woman herself, has since spread to several other platforms, with many users intrigued by what had happened between the two people in the highly publicized incident.
On September 5th, Vanessa Phillips, a content creator and make-up artist, posted a video to her Facebook in which she confronted a man named Armonte Wilson, who is a pastor, on a cruise ship she was on, claiming he had scammed her.
In the caption of her video, Phillips says that she had met Wilson on a previous cruise, and that they had agreed to go on this cruise together. She claims he gave her a fake booking number so that she would send $1,100 to him, which she did.
Phillips also claims that, hours before they were scheduled to board, Wilson blocked her number and that, when she called the cruise, she was informed that Wilson had only spent $550 on his room and that her name wasn’t on the reservation. She then booked her own room and boarded the cruise anyway.
The video starts with Phillips walking on the cruise and entering an outer deck with a hot tub, where some people are seen chatting as she records them, focusing on two men in particular.
Eventually, one of these two men notices Phillips and points to her while he asks the other man, Wilson, if he knows her. Wilson turns to Phillips, but says nothing.
"Oh, you thought I wasn't going to get on here?" Phillips asks, to which Wilson replies that he didn't. "When you took my $1,100?" she asks, and Wilson again says he didn't.
Phillips then asks, "You thought I wasn't going to make it?" and Wilson replies that he knew she would.
"So where my money at?" Phillips asks. "I have it," Wilson replies, but when Phillips asks him if he has it now, he says he doesn't.
"So it's okay for you to take my $1,100 and you on a cruise, you know they told me you only paid $500, right?" Phillips asked. Wilson, walking closer to her, said that he did. "So why did you take $1,100 from me? Why didn't you put my name on the reservation?" Phillips then inquires.
Wilson says that he did put Phillip's name on the reservation, but that he took it off later. Phillips asks him what she did to make him do that, and he says that she didn't do anything and that he was in a hospital.
"Okay, but now you're on a cruise. So, where's my money and why you took me off the reservation?" Phillips asks. Wilson then claims that he took her off the reservation because Phillips didn't show up on time, but Phillips says she was there at 1 o'clock.
At this point, both were talking loudly and interrupting each other. A "woah, woah" can be heard as the other people on the hot tub try to calm them down.
Both Phillips and Wilson then pause for a moment before Phillips says, "What I wanna know is where's my $1,100?"
Wilson begins to move, so Phillips gets closer to the hot tub entrance and asks him again where the money is, threatening that things would get really "ugly."
Wilson gets closer to Phillips and asks her if she's going to put her hands on him, as she continues to ask him for the money. "You know you stole my $1,100, Armonte Wilson," she says, before asking him again where her money was.
"I didn't steal your money," Wilson replies.
"So why did you take a cruise, telling me we was gonna be on it together?" Phillips asks, telling him once again that he stole her money and asking him where her money was again, while Wilson looks at her with an expression of disgust. When Phillips pauses, Wilson tells her that he's going to call security, moving past her to exit the hot tub.
Phillips tells him, "You go do that!" and follows him out of the hot tub as she tells Wilson that she'll go with him. Someone in the hot tub asks Phillips why she's bothering Wilson, and the video ends.
In the caption, Phillips writes that she wasn’t planning to get physically violent with Wilson, and that she intended to get him to confess so that she could report him.
According to USA Today, Phillips and Wilson had met once before and stayed in touch online. Phillips said Wilson had made a post looking for someone to go on the MSC Seascape with, and Phillips said she was interested. They agreed to sail together, and Wilson asked Phillips to send him money to pay her portion, which she started doing in late June.
However, Wilson claims that Phillips then disputed the payments days before they were scheduled to board, and so he had her name taken off the reservation.
On the other hand, Phillips says that she only disputed her payments once Wilson had ghosted her and taken her name off the reservation.
Since the incident, Phillips has filed reports with the ship's security, local police and the FBI. Wilson’s Venmo account has also been suspended since Phillips disputed the payments, and he insists that, while there may have been some mistakes on his part, he didn’t scam Phillips.
Amid the virality surrounding the incident in recent weeks, both have taken to social media to ask people not to harass the other person.