S01.E09: Dangerously Close

[kwnyc]

Wow! Thanks for sharing that. And it says that the $300k she received WAS used to pay her debts. I have no doubt she'll turn up again like a bad penny.

[CrystalBlue]

It will be her turning up like a bad pfennig.

[dovegrey]

7 hours ago, kwnyc said:

I don't think this story could have happened anywhere else than NYC, and I think that Sorokin is going to keep on finding people who believe her, and continue to grift her way around the world.

This made me think of how unsure and insecure Anna appeared on Hen's yacht in Ibiza, when she was trying to fit in with truly wealthy folks. She wasn't even close to being dressed appropriately, which started her off on shaky footing; overall, it took her a while to get her footing there, and she ended up blowing the entire thing (losing connections with deep wealth like Talia and Hen, nearly losing Chase [and Nora by proxy], and ultimately needing to cut Val loose...that was a bad, all-dominoes-fall trip for her). Whether that was fictionalized or based on real reports, I think it underscored how careful she usually was about choosing her situations, the people she conned, and where she conned. It was all calculated.

I agree she'll keep grifting and getting by, but I do wonder how successful she'll be.

[kwnyc]

Looks like she's still in the US.

 

https://nypost.com/2022/03/15/anna-delvey-remains-in-ice-custody-deportation-on-hold/

Also from People:

https://people.com/crime/anna-delvey-still-in-ice-custody-deportation-delayed/

If she's deported, she probably won't be allowed back legally, because she's a convicted felon. That doesn't mean she couldn't sneak back in.

 

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by kwnyc

[dubbel zout]

On 3/14/2022 at 5:01 PM, CrystalBlue said:

It will be her turning up like a bad pfennig.

A bad Euro these days.

I waited to watch it all before commenting. I LOVED this. The subject matter is right up my alley. What gobsmacked me the most is that no one—NO ONE—googled Anna. And we never saw anyone talking about how she came out of nowhere. If she were that rich, there would be something about her on the interwebs. I guess I sort of understand why her social contacts didn't dig, but for the business folks not to do any sort of due diligence until they were required to is inexcusable. I'd be really wary of working with a lot of the money people after that. 

What I found fascinating was how desperate so many of these very rich people were to be involved with the next big thing. Anna knew that and knew exactly how to keep them on the hook. She is an astoundingly terrible person, but wow, her ability to manipulate people into doing what she wanted was kind of amazing. And even after everything, she still had (has?) people who were (are?) loyal to her. Neff sticking by Anna was inexplicable to me. Okay, admire the hustle—it was impressive—but at least acknowledge the wreckage left behind because of that hustle. Ugh.

I don't know how closely they hewed to the trial transcript, but Rachel's part in things felt very badly done by the prosecution. I feel like if they'd emphasized that Rachel et al were in a foreign country and being threatened with jail time and she felt trapped into handing over her credit cards, and that Rachel was dogging Anna for months to get (unsuccessfully) repaid, maybe it would have gone over better with the jury. As it was shown, the jury got the impression that Rachel was laughing all the way to the bank. She made a chunk of change, for sure, but she also paid a pretty big emotional and reputational price for that. But according to Rachel's Wiki page, she called the series a "fictional story" and accuses Netflix of "putting money in [Sorokin's] pocket." Well, yes and no. Son of Sam laws in NYS prohibit criminals from profiting from the publicity of their crimes, so it's not as if the Netflix money is helping Anna buy Cup O'Noodles at the ICE detention center.

Frankly, I'd have dropped the dime on Anna too if I had been in Rachel's shoes, especially after months of hearing the wire transfer would happen tomorrow and tomorrow never came. This wasn't $50, it was more than $60,000. Good grief.

[LuvMyShows]

My pet peeve: a lot of the articles on Anna are saying, "After serving most of her four-year sentence....".  That's crap.  She was sentenced in May 2019 and got out in February 2021, That's 1 year and 9 months.

On 3/17/2022 at 10:00 PM, dubbel zout said:

Neff sticking by Anna was inexplicable to me. 

So for some reason I was thinking about that, and the only thing I can come up with, is that she secretly still believes that Anna is an heiress, and is hoping that Anna will fund her films.

On 3/17/2022 at 10:00 PM, dubbel zout said:

But according to Rachel's Wiki page, she called the series a "fictional story" and accuses Netflix of "putting money in [Sorokin's] pocket." Well, yes and no. Son of Sam laws in NYS prohibit criminals from profiting from the publicity of their crimes, so it's not as if the Netflix money is helping Anna buy Cup O'Noodles at the ICE detention center.

I had thought so too, but Anna's Wiki article says that she was fined $24,000, ordered to pay restitution of $199,000 (including $100,000 to City National, $70,000 to Citibank, and approximately two-thirds of the amount owed to Blade, and ordered to pay approximately $75,000 in legal fees related to the trial, and those were paid from proceeds of the $320,000 deal with Netflix; the court allowed her to keep the remaining $22,000.

[dubbel zout]

27 minutes ago, LuvMyShows said:

the court allowed her to keep the remaining $22,000

I wonder if that was so she had some money (and wouldn't start scamming again). That's not a small amount, but it's also not much in NYC.

[dovegrey]

41 minutes ago, LuvMyShows said:

I had thought so too, but Anna's Wiki article says that she was fined $24,000, ordered to pay restitution of $199,000 (including $100,000 to City National, $70,000 to Citibank, and approximately two-thirds of the amount owed to Blade, and ordered to pay approximately $75,000 in legal fees related to the trial, and those were paid from proceeds of the $320,000 deal with Netflix; the court allowed her to keep the remaining $22,000.

I imagine federal tax on the $320,000 income would be in there somewhere, unless Netflix somehow took care of that. Inmates still pay taxes on income. I wonder if she walked away with any money at all, or possibly even still has a tax bill on that chunk of money? (I'm not a tax person, though. Back in college, I used to get my 1040EZ forms sent back from the IRS with corrections LOL.)

In any event, I don't doubt that she will continue to profit off the added fame and exposure of the show, which has been highly popular; she'll do future interviews and probably land TV appearances.

Edited March 22, 2022 by dovegrey

[Shermie]

On 2/15/2022 at 9:54 AM, peachmangosteen said:

I also thought Katie Lowes was kinda terrible in this.

I thought it was terrible casting. Katie is pretty, but not “beautiful”, as described. Physically, she’s not to type as a young beautiful socialite-wannabe. 

I thought Julie Garner was a great mix of obnoxious arrogance and sudden vulnerability. As for her accent, I read that the real Anna’s accent was a weird hodge-podge, and that Garner captured it well.

[txhorns79]

I didn't understand Todd's motivations in putting Anna before his marriage after the verdict had been announced.  When he left his wife standing on the street to run back into the court to be with Anna, I hope she left him.  At least with Vivian, I could see how a journalist could become too close to her subject after spending months getting to know her, and lines begin to blur.

I just shook my head at Neff.  I get that she got paid back, but surely any sentient human could see that despite Anna making one situation right, she was not a good person.  And for all her moralizing over Rachel, I guess Neff never stopped to think where those thousands of dollars in tips she was so happy to take came from.

 

[dubbel zout]

9 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

I just shook my head at Neff.  I get that she got paid back, but surely any sentient human could see that despite Anna making one situation right, she was not a good person. 

I think she really enjoyed seeing all those rich white people get taken for a ride. Never mind Rachel was supposed to be her friend and wasn't rich; she was dumb enough to get taken in by Anna.

[greekmom]

On 3/12/2022 at 10:02 AM, dovegrey said:

Nora gave permission for Anna to sign for her account at Bergdorf. I’m no financial fraud expert, but I highly doubt Nora would have successful legal recourse for that. That’s a lesson learned: don’t give other people access to your spending accounts. (Anna writing down Nora’s credit card number during the carry-out pick up is a whole different story.)

Likewise, Rachel agreed to put her card on file at the hotel and left it there when she fled the country; nothing about Anna continuing to stay there and put charges on the cards is ethically right, but Rachel put the card on file, left it there, and gave no instruction to the staff (at least on the show) to decline any additional charges. Was it truly fraud for Anna to keep charging it? I don't know, but I'm not surprised the jury declined to convict that charge. It strikes me more as a civil matter.

I don't think Rachel left her credit card at the hotel.  They had the number, expiry date on file because they used it as a hold since Anna didn't have a working credit card and the promise of a wire transfer was coming (isn't that the case with wire transfers!?!? 🤣).

Anyhoo, my point is that at that moment the hotel has your number, you are royally screwed because the hotel will charge anything and everything on that card if no other sufficient funds materialize. It's not like Rachel can go up to the front desk and say: "Hey ummm. that credit card I gave you to hold. Well I need you to not charge the bill there as I am taking off. "   She would have been hauled off to some jail in Morocco.

The ONLY thing Rachel could have done and didn't was contact her credit cards when she got to American soil and just cancel any charges as fraud immediately or decline the charges. Whatever.  She didn't.

Did Anna pay Kacey for the workout sessions or did she screw her over as well?  And if Neff was such a great friend, why didnt Anna couch surf on her couch instead of Kacey?

Would love to see some social experiment if someone can pull the same con now days.

[dovegrey]

1 minute ago, greekmom said:

I don't think Rachel left her credit card at the hotel.  They had the number, expiry date on file because they used it as a hold since Anna didn't have a working credit card and the promise of a wire transfer was coming (isn't that the case with wire transfers!?!? 🤣).

Anyhoo, my point is that at that moment the hotel has your number, you are royally screwed because the hotel will charge anything and everything on that card if no other sufficient funds materialize. It's not like Rachel can go up to the front desk and say: "Hey ummm. that credit card I gave you to hold. Well I need you to not charge the bill there as I am taking off. "   She would have been hauled off to some jail in Morocco.

The ONLY thing Rachel could have done and didn't was contact her credit cards when she got to American soil and just cancel any charges as fraud immediately or decline the charges. Whatever.  She didn't.

Yeah, there was a whole back-and-forth discussion about this in the 1x7 thread, where I said this: "I posted a little about this in the episode 9 thread, and I recently rewatched Episode 6. It seems like Rachel took both of her cards from Morocco when she checked out and left. After Rachel discovered the charges, she told Kacy that the hotel kept her credit card numbers on file. Anna stayed for another entire week, after everyone else left. When Anna tried to check out from the hotel, she had the hotel charge that entire Anna-only week to Rachel's cards - maxed out the personal card and charged the rest to Rachel's work card. No one had permission to do that. It was fraud. It was effectively two stolen credit cards used without authorization, with the card owner having left with the credit cards a week before."

I rewatched the whole series again recently (I absolutely hate this show now LOL), because my SO was suddenly interested in it, and the writers did a terrible job with this storyline. Huge details were included as little throwaway lines or quick blink-and-miss-it flashbacks that were played as quirky scenes with loud music rather than significant story points. Even Rachel having to pay for everyone's plane tickets was included in the show (which I didn't catch until, oh, my fourth viewing?), but it was a 0.2 millisecond throwaway line. And then Rachel was portrayed as Helpless Crying Fishface who couldn't articulate what actually happened to anyone, let alone the audience. My SO didn't get it at all and concluded Rachel was whining about having to pay her own way, which seems like a popular audience takeaway. The show would have benefited from more linear storytelling altogether.

I honestly don't understand why Rachel didn't call AmEx and report Anna's Solo Week as an unauthorized charge by the hotel. It would have significantly reduced the amount she owed and probably would have credited the whole amount as a chargeback while AmEx investigated. I also don't understand why she wasn't trying to get the camera guy and Kacy to give her something to pay their share, as well, since the $62K included their stay, too. Or, worst case scenario after three months of being ghosted by Anna, taken out a personal loan to try to get as much of the work balance repaid as possible. None of that absolves Anna of what Anna did, but, boy, was Rachel portrayed here as helpless and inept, and her story was not told well at all.

[greekmom]

11 hours ago, dovegrey said:

I honestly don't understand why Rachel didn't call AmEx and report Anna's Solo Week as an unauthorized charge by the hotel. It would have significantly reduced the amount she owed and probably would have credited the whole amount as a chargeback while AmEx investigated. I also don't understand why she wasn't trying to get the camera guy and Kacy to give her something to pay their share, as well, since the $62K included their stay, too. Or, worst case scenario after three months of being ghosted by Anna, taken out a personal loan to try to get as much of the work balance repaid as possible. None of that absolves Anna of what Anna did, but, boy, was Rachel portrayed here as helpless and inept, and her story was not told well at all.

Kacy was only there for what? 24 hours and left on the next flight out due to the stomach bug.

Camera guy was there for work and he said he was down to his last dollar and this job was suppose to make bank for him as well as give him exposure to other jobs.

I don't like the Rachel character but I totally agree she was portrayed as inept and stupid. I guess at that age no one is really thinking straight. I still feel that Rachel was swindled by Anna.

[dubbel zout]

14 hours ago, greekmom said:

The ONLY thing Rachel could have done and didn't was contact her credit cards when she got to American soil and just cancel any charges as fraud immediately or decline the charges. Whatever.  She didn't.

Wasn't that was she was trying to do in the gardens in Marrakesh? 

At any rate, you'd think by the time Rachel fled Morocco she'd have clued into the fact that Anna wasn't going to pay for anything. I'd have phrased it to my boss like, "I had to use my business Amex so I wasn't thrown into a Moroccan jail. How can we straighten this out?" I think if she'd done that, she wouldn't have gotten fired. Her continued faith in Anna was so dumb.

2 hours ago, greekmom said:

I still feel that Rachel was swindled by Anna.

I agree, but I think Rachel messed things by the way she handled them, so legally she left some wiggle room.

[Adiba]

18 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Wasn't that was she was trying to do in the gardens in Marrakesh? 

At any rate, you'd think by the time Rachel fled Morocco she'd have clued into the fact that Anna wasn't going to pay for anything. I'd have phrased it to my boss like, "I had to use my business Amex so I wasn't thrown into a Moroccan jail. How can we straighten this out?" I think if she'd done that, she wouldn't have gotten fired. Her continued faith in Anna was so dumb.

I agree, but I think Rachel messed things by the way she handled them, so legally she left some wiggle room.

I think Rachel was still somehow clinging to magical thinking that Anna wouldn’t, couldn’t be so morally corrupt as to not pay her back? They did not write the Rachel character well, imo.

As a personal anecdote, years ago I used my Amex card to shop at a local mall. Paid the bill, done—didn’t use it at all for a few months. Then, started getting bills for charges at that same mall for different dates. I happened to be out of the country on several of those dates and had not even gone back to that mall. It took A LOT of phone calls and runaround to get the charges off.
Fast-forward to the next year, and I get a letter saying that due to an internal accounting audit at Amex, the see I still owe them $$. I had to go through the whole rigamarole again to get the charges dropped. So I imagine things were not so easy in real life for Rachel.

[dubbel zout]

1 hour ago, Adiba said:

So I imagine things were not so easy in real life for Rachel.

She could have had Conde Nast advocate for her given that it was a corporate card. I get things were tough for her on a number of levels, but she just sat around crying and begging Anna to pay her back. "Magical thinking," indeed.

[dovegrey]

4 hours ago, greekmom said:

Kacy was only there for what? 24 hours and left on the next flight out due to the stomach bug.

Camera guy was there for work and he said he was down to his last dollar and this job was suppose to make bank for him as well as give him exposure to other jobs.

I don't like the Rachel character but I totally agree she was portrayed as inept and stupid. I guess at that age no one is really thinking straight. I still feel that Rachel was swindled by Anna.

When it became clear that Anna couldn’t/wouldn’t pay for any of the trip, and Kacy is sitting there spewing toxic positivity “you’re a bad bitch!” BS at Rachel for 90 days, that’s the time to pony up your share of the trip, especially as the only one of the group with any actual money. Even if it was just $4,000 (Kacy’s plane tickets, Kacy’s part of the $10K/day villa divided by four for one day/night, and food) of the $62K. As Neff would say, pay your way. Rachel paid for all of them, including Anna’s extra week by herself. Of course she was swindled.

And I about threw the remote at the TV when Rachel asked Cameraguy if she was too nice and got taken advantage of and he kinda told her yes. Uh, y’all would have been in a Moroccan jail if Rachel hadn’t been the only one willing to put a card down. Oddly, no one (particularly Neff) is slamming him or Kacy for not paying their share - only slamming Rachel for daring to be upset about paying EVERYONE’S way and then her cards being used without her permission by Anna and the hotel. It would make a fantastic Twilight Zone episode.

1 hour ago, Adiba said:

I think Rachel was still somehow clinging to magical thinking that Anna wouldn’t, couldn’t be so morally corrupt as to not pay her back? They did not write the Rachel character well, imo.

As Neff said earlier in the season, Anna and Rachel were best friends for two years. It can be hard to see a sociopath/narcissist for who they are without being friends, but then add two years of affection, platonic intimacy, favors, and evidence of wealth (aka, love bombing), and I can understand why Rachel resisted seeing the truth. I imagine Anna also chose Rachel as a friend because she innately saw a really good mark who wouldn't automatically push back. (Neff pushed back and unwittingly knew part of Anna's family truth, so Neff got reimbursed and then left behind.)

As a general comment, 1x7 is when the show nosedived, IMO, and the writer/producer bias started coming out, which culminated in this incoherent wreck of a finale.

Edited April 10, 2022 by dovegrey

[dubbel zout]

3 hours ago, dovegrey said:

Oddly, no one (particularly Neff) is slamming him or Kacy for not paying their share

Wasn't it clear that the camera guy was there for business (i.e., filming Anna)? He shouldn't have to pay his way. As for Kacy, I do think she should have kicked in something. Rachel would still be screwed, so it wouldn't make that much of a dent in what she owed.

[dovegrey]

28 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Wasn't it clear that the camera guy was there for business (i.e., filming Anna)? He shouldn't have to pay his way. As for Kacy, I do think she should have kicked in something. Rachel would still be screwed, so it wouldn't make that much of a dent in what she owed.

They ended up dating, right? I’d be mortified if the person I ended up dating (nearly?) lost her job and her housing for a business trip I was on and incurred costs on. Rachel paid for his work. Did he do anything to try to get paid by Anna after the fact, or was the trip his payment and he just let Rachel eat it while he asked her out and agreed that it was sorta kinda her fault? It’s super skeevy and the show treated it like Rachel was just dumb and greedy and it was all her fault anyway so there. That’s the producers for you.

Even if she had managed to recoup $13k-$14k from Kacy, Cameraguy, and Anna altogether, that would still be nearly a quarter of what she owed, so…? 🤑

[lovinbob]

On 2/23/2022 at 12:28 PM, jrlr said:

This monolithic mess should have been four episodes at the most, and I'd still be pissed off at how awful it was.  The writing was terrible - the structure, the characters and the direction are all sub-par.  And everytime the Vivian character was on screen, I wanted to scream "cut," and tell the actress to stop mugging, grimacing, whining and behaving like an amateur writer wannabe instead of a seasoned pro.   That was one of the worst performances I've ever seen from an actual professional.  

 

On 3/13/2022 at 1:02 PM, TheBride said:

Am I the only one that thinks Vivian Kent is bizarre and almost hateful? Or is Anna Chlumsky just a horrible actor? 

I adore Anna Chlumsky but really disliked her in this. Her manner got more and more over the top as the series went on. 

And I do think the direction was at fault because several of the other characters were similarly cartoonish. I did love the German interpreter’s reaction to Vivian’s manic behavior.

I was sooo disappointed when everyone ended up rooting for Anna. The Scriberians, especially. There is no “both sides” to this situation. I don’t care if she defrauded banks, or Vanity Fair editorial assistants, or shallow socialites, she took shit that wasn’t hers to take. Period. 

[Cinnabon]

On 2/16/2022 at 9:20 AM, FozzyBear said:

Same and much like you I hated Anna. And Rachel did get scammed, but I think what Anna did to her was shitty, not criminal. If Rachel had gotten her head together she would have told the hotel they were checking out as soon as the credit card became an issue. Told Anna she could help out since Anna had been so generous but this was all more than she could afford and they needed to leave immediately. And then told the hotel the same thing. That way she might have been harassing Anna for $20,000 instead of $60,000.  Learning that some peoples credit card always has a “hold” on it is a tough lesson but a good one. Anna took advantage of Rachel but I don’t think she stole from her here. Still incredibly shitty and I don’t understand trying to make Rachel the villain. If Anna hadn’t scammed enough money to pay her hotel bill Neff could have been testifying as well and Todd would have ripped into her too. I don’t think any of the people Anna scammed are at fault. She was a scammer! It’s what they do!

I don’t think the hotel would have just let them leave though. They would have called the police.

[dubbel zout]

The hotel basically said that when they demanded a credit card number to hold.

[Shermie]

On 4/9/2022 at 8:56 PM, greekmom said:

Would love to see some social experiment if someone can pull the same con now days.

One thing I do know is that if you act like you belong somewhere, it’s easy to fake your way in. (Barring actual security issues) Also, I jokingly call it “the clicky-clacky shoes effect” because if a woman strides confidently into a room with her high heels clicking as she goes, heads will turn and she will get what she wants. I’ve done it, and I’m a nobody.

Isn’t that what people said about Anna? That she had that arrogant entitled rich person air about her, so they assumed she was one.

I’ve always wanted to do a social experiment in the same vein. Get a generically attractive well-dressed young woman to stride through a mall on a busy Saturday, with a couple of dark-suited guys following her. Have a few pre-planned fake fans dash up and gush “I can’t believe it’s really you” and “When is Testament to Love coming out?” and “Can you sign my arm/phone/purse?” etc. See if any members of the public join in.

[Cinnabon]

ON 4/9/2022 AT 8:56 PM,  GREEKMOM SAID: 

Would love to see some social experiment if someone can pull the same con nowdays.
 

This only happened a few short years ago, so not much has changed imo.

27 minutes ago, Shermie said:

One thing I do know is that if you act like you belong somewhere, it’s easy to fake your way in. (Barring actual security issues) Also, I jokingly call it “the clicky-clacky shoes effect” because if a woman strides confidently into a room with her high heels clicking as she goes, heads will turn and she will get what she wants. I’ve done it, and I’m a nobody.

Isn’t that what people said about Anna? That she had that arrogant entitled rich person air about her, so they assumed she was one.

I’ve always wanted to do a social experiment in the same vein. Get a generically attractive well-dressed young woman to stride through a mall on a busy Saturday, with a couple of dark-suited guys following her. Have a few pre-planned fake fans dash up and gush “I can’t believe it’s really you” and “When is Testament to Love coming out?” and “Can you sign my arm/phone/purse?” etc. See if any members of the public join in.

Depends on what the woman wants, I guess.  😆 and does she have to be young?

Edited April 23, 2022 by Cinnabon

[redpencil]

On 3/21/2022 at 6:22 PM, LuvMyShows said:

My pet peeve: a lot of the articles on Anna are saying, "After serving most of her four-year sentence....".  That's crap.  She was sentenced in May 2019 and got out in February 2021, That's 1 year and 9 months.

Pretty sure she gets credit for time served before she was sentenced. She was arrested in 2017, I believe. Not sure what month, but that means that it was closer to 4 years.

[roughing it]

On 2/19/2022 at 7:05 PM, Jordan Baker said:

Anna Chlumsky, though, was woefully miscast. Her facial expressions were completely over the top. I honestly couldn't figure out whether she'd been told to overact or whether it was her own choice, but the eye bulging, grimacing, etc., were way too much.

I kept seeing Nancy Kerrigan.

[halkatla]

I don´t hate Anna, but I hate people like Neff who are all "she never did anything to me so why shouldn´t I stand by her, help her etc...". They are the enablers of injustice, cruelty, abuse and everything that evil people get away with. The character of Neff is probably the most unpleasant one I have seen on screen in a long time.

[SongbirdHollow]

On 3/6/2022 at 8:11 PM, SnapHappy said:

After watching that whole thing, the good, the bad and the indifferent, I have just ONE question, because I must have missed it: 

     What did they name the baby?

Closed captioning says Maddy. 

[rlc]

Perhaps it is because I've watched too many Shonda shows, but I don't think we were supposed to like any of them. I think the fact that people were rooting for Anna to get off was because of the misogyny and the disparity of what the very rich get away with. Anna showed that just her implied wealth opened an obscene number of doors. The fact that she was given a massive line of credit from the bank as an apology for the fact that the hadn't approved her loan (because she had provided any proof of income or wealth). She showed the crater sized sink holes in the system, and none of the men who were party to this were punished in any way (unless you consider losing the prime court at the University Club to be a punishment).