(Actual names have been changed)
In our apartment we had two bedrooms right across from each other. Each room was big enough for two people to share each room. My actual roommate and I got along well. Living in the room across from me was Samoa.
I liked Samoa. She was nice, responsible and seemed intelligent. She was very open, although she only ever talked about herself. She told us how she got into USC but decided to go here because her dad was being treated at the hospital in Bakersfield. She was here on a scholarship. She also made me really yummy tea during the first day I met her.
A few weeks into school. I won a $100 gift card to our school’s bookstore and I bought a planner. The next day I couldn’t find where I placed it despite looking everywhere for it. Weeks later, I lost my rose mist spray. Then I couldn’t find my favorite plaid skirt. At first, I did not worry about it too much; I figured I’d misplace them somewhere in my laundry or left it at school.
During the same time I started to witness straightforward behavior from Samoa. Around October we have gotten a new roommate because the girl that roomed with Samoa was 3 years older than us and wasn’t allowed to live with us anymore. We got a new roommate named Cindy. Samoa hated Cindy. Everyday she would find a way to talk about Cindy behind her back and complain about the messes that she made. It got so bad she would even try to go far as kick her out for being a disorganized roommate. She told everyone and managed to convinced them about how awful Cindy roommate was. However take in mind “messy” to Samoa is having a coffee spot on the counter, a dish in the sink, or a strand of hair on the countertop. If you left a dish on the sink she would tell you in this condescending patronizing tone, “This morning i saw that you left your dish in the sink, I am so disappointed in you”
One evening I was laying in my bed with the door closed, I got up and saw that someone had slipped a note under the door “Clean your bread crumbs on the counter and next time take out the trash when you're on your period”. Although I found this rude and passive aggressive, I decided I would just do it anyway and tell her I got her note.
Another time when she made me and my roommates tea, she made a remark with the topic of using friends for your own benefits. She told us that I would never have talked to her in the first place, if she didn't make me tea because that was all I used her for. And people were only friends with each other so they can use each other. I retorted with that real friends don’t need to give in order to secure friendship. And my argument surprised her.
It was then during December when we were leaving for Christmas break that Samoa had enough of Cindy “messes” and wrote a strongly worded letter. She showed the letter to me and I read of some sentences that had, “Next time you eat popcorn actually eat it, don’t feed it to the ground” or “Don’t make me regret letting you into this apartment’. Despite knowing it was a letter I wouldn’t want to receive, I told Samoa to give it if you feel like it will help your situation. Which was exactly what she did.
Around January when we came back from winter break, one night I came back from a Residence Hall Association (RHA) meeting. I absentmindedly placed my phone, and a I.D wallet that had my dorm keys in the table where Samoa was sitting, using her laptop. I decided to take a shower. When I went back to the table to retrieve my stuff, I could not find my phone.
Panicking I teared up my room, checked every nook and cranny of the apartment. I looked in my jacket, backpack, bed, underneath my bed, the pantries, the bathroom and just everywhere I could of been in the apartment. I told my actual roommate to call it but it was turned off so I wasn't able to reach it. Soon after Samoa told me that when I came back from the apartment I didn’t set it on the table only my keys. The next day I went back into the conference room I was in to check for my phone with the help of the Residence Director. But for about a week I was left without no phone and had no way to communicate with my parents or friends.
Subsequently Samoa had told me how her parents had gotten her a new iPhone 6S in gray. A few days later she told me she couldn’t use it because her Dad bought the wrong phone company so they couldn’t use it and they would have to jailbreak the phone to unlock it. Which was extremely hard to do. She had also told me a story about how her brother one day randomly lost his phone going on a field trip to make me feel better.
Which of course were only some of the many lies that Samoa told us, naming them all I would have to write a book.
Fast forwarding to March around Cesar Chavez weekend going into the third quarter, I had over $130 in my wallet for textbook money. After a Friday and Saturday of going out with friends or the gym, I checked my bag on Sunday to realize I lost all my money and especially had no debit card in my bag. Being filled with anxiety I looked for my money and my card around my room, but wasn’t able to find it with no avail. I went online to check under the purchases of my card and found someone had done their laundry and bought soda from the vending machine. I quickly decided to cancel my debit card and file for fraudulent activity. This was the first debit card cancellation out of the two more that I would have to do.
Weeks after on a Sunday evening, I was checking my bank account with my mom. During the list of purchases I noticed two LYFT rides that were recently taken that I never authorized. Quickly my Mom called our bank services and cancelled my card as soon as possible. Being one of the second time I had to cancel my card.
Their were also conventional habits that Samoa would do when I went out with her. She would always make me LYFT everywhere telling me that she had problems with her debit card. She would make any excuse to not pay for the LYFT ride. She would also proceed to tell me she would pay me back but of course she never did. However with Cindy, she would get mad at her if she wouldn’t pay for a ride back or split the ride if they went out.
The third incident when I decided to cancel my card was when I noticed their were more unauthorized LYFT rides. I was fed up of seeing them so I decided to contact the source: LYFT. I had emailed LYFT services and explained my situation wanting to cancel my LYFT account. However through LYFT I learned that there wasn’t any problem with my account, there was someone using my debit card information under the name of Samoa. Reading my roommates name in the LYFT email made me so shocked. Most of all I was scared and angry. A place where I felt secure and had someone I trusted had been broken.
Here was a cunning, manipulative soul that was stealing my debit card information. This opened the door to many new realizations that she was also stealing my money and most of all she was the one who stole my “lost” phone.
I quickly decided to contact my roommates about Samoa and sent them the e-mail. I decided to avoid confronting Samoa because I knew she would find a way to pin it on me or somehow blame me at my irresponsibility. If there was one thing that Samoa was good at doing, it was making you feel bad about yourself. Not to mention around this time Samoa conveniently left in the beginning of the week to go back to Fresno. Leaving us roommates to all be relieved of her presence.
I decided to check her Twitter account (in retrospect I regret giving her my Twitter because she judged mine hardcore) I had seen a Tweet made by her around February (she didn’t Tweet much) that she was selling an iPhone 6s Rosegold T-mobile that was 16GB. Which sounded like the very one I lost. Plus of course it was.
My roommate and I on the same day chose to go to a RHA meeting in hopes of telling our Residence Director about our situation knowing that she would know what to do. When we did, she told us to send us an email explaining everything and also the evidence of the LYFT email and Tweet.
My roommates and I met with another Residence Hall Director whom we explained our situation too. She then contacted the campus police. He interrogated us with questions, dates of when things happened or went missing, evidence and proof and etc. Which led us to file a police report against Samoa and having the Residence Director file a judicial report.
Concerned for our safety, the three of us had to move out of our old dorm and into an emergency dorm. We had our emergency dorm for atlas 3 days. We waited the whole weekend until Samoa had to come back because she was going to go through investigation. When she did return she had a conference with the Resident Director leading me to send proof of the emails from LYFT confirming that Samoa was using my LYFT account and send her the list of purchases she made made from my bank account, and the Tweet that she made about selling my iPhone.
We only had stayed at the temporary dorm shortly, because we had to switch dorms having Samoa stay at the emergency room and us back at our original dorm. While we moved our things back into the dorm, Samoa was being watched at the Lounge. When it was her time to move out we stayed at a computer room, while she moved her things with a RA supervising her.
A month later after school ended, I was contacted by the detective who worked on the case, that I was able to get my iPhone back. He had to reach out to a girl that Samoa had sold it to from the school. As for the money that she stolen, over $200 I wasn’t able to get back because of the lack of evidence or proof that she did take anything. As for the LYFT rides she offered to pay me back but I was already reimbursed from my bank and notified them of my police report.
Overall from the case I never spoke to Samoa since she had left. But what I do know for sure is that she will not be returning back to the school. What I do know is she will continue to have people believing that she goes to USC and that she is studying Pre-Med.
Although a month has past, I have grown as a person and learned a lot from this incident; never to be too trusting to someone who deems responsible or trustworthy because that person has the capacity of betrayal.
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