Scammed Pt3: Abena Talks aka. Abena Edina Jackson — One of Medium’s Most Prolific Writers Scammed Me!
How Abena Talks aka. Abena Edina Brianna Jackson Lied About Her Father’s Death to Avoid Paying Me
This is an ongoing series about how Abena Talks — also known as Abena Edina Brianna Jackson, Abena Yussuf, and Abena Damoah — defrauded my husband and me of thousands of dollars.
(Read story for free here)
Recap
In Parts 1 and 2, I shared how my friendship with Abena Talks aka. Abena Edina Brianna Jackson evolved from mutual respect as writers on Medium to a trust-based relationship that she ultimately exploited.
Abena used her charm, credibility, and promises of easy remote work with guaranteed earnings to lure my husband and me into an elaborate scam.
After paying thousands in upfront agency fees for freelance accounts and trusting her repeated reassurances, the red flags — missed deadlines, vague excuses, and a shady agency — became impossible to ignore.
By the end of November, the truth had become painfully clear: I had been duped by someone I once called a ‘friend’.
The job was fake!
The agency was fake!
The remote job opportunity was all a part of Abena’s elaborate remote work scam!
Part 3
The Master Manipulator — Lies, Excuses, and the Funeral that never was
By November, the cracks in Abena’s story were widening.
Whenever I asked about feedback and payment information she was always unable to answer for one reason or another.
At the same time, I was finding it harder and harder to reach Abena.
My trust in her was slowly eroding because I could no longer ignore the red flags in my face!
Nonetheless, I still clung to the hope that she would come through. After all, who fabricates entire stories about their father’s death to stall payments?
That’s too outrageous, right?
Wrong.
The Father She Never Lost
Abena broke the news to me about her father’s illness one day when I asked her for updates on our freelance accounts and payments.
I decided to give her some space and time to deal with her personal life.
When I reached out a few days later for updates about the subject, she dropped the bombshell on me: her father had passed away.
She was no longer in Malaysia. She was now at home grieving. Planning a funeral. Family was in and out of her home. She was paying for everything because her sisters were broke. Trying to hold herself together while still managing work.
Initially, I felt terrible for her.
Losing a parent or even the possibility of it is devastating, and I couldn’t imagine the emotional toll it must have been taking on her.
Still, a part of me couldn’t shake off the feeling that maybe she was lying! It all seemed so convenient.
But I kept dismissing the feeling — because who in their right mind lies about the death of a parent?
The Funeral That Never Was
Abena’s story of her father’s death quickly unraveled.
While she told me she was back home mourning and couldn’t answer simple questions related to payments, her social media painted a completely different picture. (Abena has many youtube channels and was unaware I was following her on this particular channel)
Instead of grief-stricken posts or a hiatus from social media, I watched Abena post daily content on her youtube channel “Let’s Talk Africa with Abena”, recently rebranded as “Afro Talk Global”. (Abena frequently changes the names of her youtube channels. It’s as if she running or hiding from something. Oh, as of today, Abena has deleted that account.)
On the day of her dad’s supposed memorial service, Abena released a video of her frolicking around Malaysia living her best digital nomad life; sipping smoothies, going to the movies and showing off her laptop lifestyle.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Still, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe , these were all pre-recorded videos, I told myself. Besides, I knew Abena would say exactly that if I confronted her about it.
But the disparity between her excuses to me and her carefree online presence felt like a slap in the face.
While she told me she was shopping for “halls” for her fathers funeral, she was commenting on youtube videos asking about the best way way to get to Penang Island in Malaysia.
Still, I hesitated to confront her.
Abena’s Planned Exit Strategy
At some point, as I continued pressing for feedback from the agency, Abena handed me off to a supposed co-worker named Melissa Joel, who she claimed was in charge of “quality control” for the AI generated summaries.
Melissa’s contact information? A generic ProtonMail address with no ties to a legitimate company or website — just another layer of ambiguity.
There was no way to verify who I was speaking with.
Was Melissa Joel a real person, or just another alias Abena was using to string me along?
The lack of professionalism and transparency raised immediate red flags. Worse, “Melissa” insisted that all issues related to quality control and payments should now be directed to her, conveniently absolving Abena of any and all responsibility.
It was clear this was part of a carefully crafted exit strategy — one where Abena could disappear from the equation while leaving me tangled in her web of deceit.
Abena Disappears on Payday
After Abena’s so-called memorial service for her father, reaching her became nearly impossible.
My WhatsApp messages went undelivered for hours, and when I finally heard back, she blamed poor reception. Conveniently, this didn’t stop her from launching new 100-day content challenges across multiple YouTube channels.
For days, while Abena fed me one excuse after another, I quietly observed her activity online. Despite claiming to be unavailable for conversations, Abena consistently posted videos across multiple channels.
Finally, On November 30th — the day she promised to pay us — Abena disappeared without a trace. Instead of following through on her promise, she blocked me on WhatsApp, cutting off all communication at the exact moment I needed answers the most.
I had told Abena several times how much we were counting on that money to pay rent, since we had invested all our money into extra accounts for this gig. But all she’s done from the beginning is lie and lie and lie.
Up until now, Abena has failed to pay us the $2500 she owes us.
Yet, she’s still active on social media, sharing videos and pretending they’re backdated after I confronted her about her behavior.
Writers on Medium Expose Abena
Reading several articles and comments from others on Medium about how Abena had also scammed them of hundreds and thousands of dollars, helped me make peace with the fact that I had indeed fallen prey to a highly sophisticated remote job scam by a professional scammer.
It lifted the veil from my eyes. It became abundantly clear to me —
The work and the agency were all fake.
Our weekly prompts were generated by AI ( I know this because of the number of fake books, errors and wrong authors often issued to us) Why would a real agency issue out fake work?
This particular article by Tracy Sutherland - Internet and Affiliate Marketer and the comments underneath opened my eyes to the gravity and scope of Abena’s scams.
Reading them helped me realize it was no accident, Abena was indeed a professional full-time scammer who continuously defrauds others.
My husband and I were not her only victims.
For me, exposing Abena is about more than recovering lost money — it’s about protecting others from falling victim to her schemes.
A big thank you to VS for also sharing her experiences underneath my story as well. Collectively, we can shine more light on Abena’s antics.
If you’ve been scammed by Abena Edina Brianna Jackson, Here are a few things I’d encourage you to do —
Write an article about it with her full name in it (so that it’ll pop up on Google when people look her up). Include all her aliases and accounts you know. Share your story!
Please don’t forget to leave your thoughts and comments on this article.
Looking forward to reading them all.
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