Save Karyn

by Karyn Bosnak

  “It’s not like a porn site or anything,” I said. “It’s like a funny website. And it’s all a big fluke what happened. Basically, it’s called savekaryn.com and I asked people to help me pay off my debt, and I didn’t really think many people would go to it, but they are and now it’s getting all this press. They just did a story about it in Business Week and the New York Times and all sorts of other papers too.”

  He was silent.

  “How much do you owe?” he asked again.

  “Dad,” I said to his question, “the lady from Business Week told me that I was the face of consumer debt today,” I said. “I kinda feel like a poster child.”

  “Karyn, how much?” he asked flatly.

  “I owed—past tense—twenty thousand dollars. But now I only owe seventeen thousand five hundred. I didn’t want to tell you until I paid it all off, but now it’s kind of getting fun and I want to share it with you.”

  He was silent.

  “Hello?” I asked. “What are you doing?”

  “Pacing,” he said. “What did you buy?”

  “Clothes,” I said quietly. “And shoes,” I said quieter. “And purses,” I said even more quietly. “And I got my hair done,” I said in almost a whisper.

  He was silent. Again.

  “Hello?” I asked again. “What are you doing?”

  “Still pacing,” he said.

  “Don’t freak, though, because I’m going to pay it off. Because you see, now a big movie company might want to buy the movie rights to make it into a movie, and publishers have contacted me to write a book. It’s going to get all paid off.”

  He was silent.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking that you still owe seventeen thousand dollars.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But my website seems to be working, so that hopefully will all go away pretty soon.”

  “What if tomorrow it doesn’t work and it doesn’t go away?”

  “Then I guess I’ll continue to pay it back myself.”

  He was silent.

  “Dad, it’s going to be okay,” I said again. “I’m going to e-mail you some of the articles, okay? And I’m going to send you a link to the website so you can check it out yourself. I’m not naked on it or anything. It’s a fun silly thing.”

  “Okay,” he said quietly. I think he was in shock.

  When I hung up, I e-mailed my dad the text to all the articles that had been written so far, from Business Week to the New York Times. And then I left him alone. I think he needed to digest what I had just told him.

  THURSDAY I WOKE UP, and after doing a few radio interviews I checked my e-mail. Another story had run in the Post again, so I was already flooded with them. After reading through a few, I stopped on one that said “Have you seen this?” I clicked on it.

  Have you seen www.dontsavekaryn.com?

  I hadn’t, and thinking that it was the same one that the New York Post journalist had told me about, I clicked on the link. But I quickly realized that it was a different one. It was called “Don’t Save Karyn,” and the layout was exactly like mine. They used the same template program that I had, so it was identical.

  The welcoming page said, “Don’t Save Karyn—Help us to waste your hard earned money!” Below it, just like my website but with different words, it said “Wanted: Your Money.” Underneath that was a picture of a leech, with a caption that read “Leeches of society are bad!” This was not a charity website, this was a different one!

  Our names are Bob and Ben. We’re really nice, and we’re asking for your help!

  You see, there’s this other website run by this chick who has no concept of “fiscal responsibility,” and wants you to pay for her bills! And people actually give her money!…

  It went on to say…

  If you give us money, in the true spirit of Karyn, we are going to waste it all on stupid stuff!

  So if you have an extra buck or two, please send it our way! We promise to waste your money in inventive and creative ways, like lap dances at the local strip club, and not use it to pay any bills or help starving children in Africa or stuff like that!

  On the left were links to pages that were similar to mine. In addition to the “Letter from Bob and Ben” and weekly update pages, they had a “Grand Spending Tally” and something called the “Daily Fuck.” I clicked on the letter from Bob and Ben.

  Hello Everyone,

  Thank you all for visiting our website! Our names are Bob and Ben. We’re really nice, and we’re asking for your help! Bottom line is that we aren’t fiscally responsible, and we don’t know how to live within our means!

  Yada yada yada. They were making fun of me. The letter continued…

  TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

  OK, so we’re not fiscally irresponsible, and we do live within our means. So what? We can still waste money like the worst of ’em! There’s plenty of things we could be buying that we don’t need…like expensive imported beer, or lap dances from strippers, or old cars that we could buy and then trash with sledgehammers, or meat lover pizza deliveries to PETA…

  They were being mean! But I kept reading…

  Why not give to us instead of Karyn? At least we’re up-front about what we’re going to do with it! Show the world that you’d rather waste money on something semi-cool than do a selfless deed to help someone who doesn’t deserve it! Of course we don’t deserve it either…but that’s beside the point!

  Huh. I can’t believe they wasted their time writing all this baloney! But I kept reading…

  WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU, YOU ASK?

  What kind of question is that? You get to see pictures of us wasting your money—isn’t that more than enough reason?

  We love wasting your money!

  Bob and Ben

  Oh my gosh! I couldn’t believe it! I never thought that what I did would spark this kind of a response. I quickly thought about the other website that the reporter had told me about, Savekarynnot.com, and went to it. And oh my gosh! It completely bashed me! “WHY save Karyn?” it asked in big bold letters. Then it went on to list dozens of reasons why not.

  The creators then posted e-mails that people had sent them, every one of them bashing me, comparing me to like the devil’s spawn and stuff. Basically, they created a mean website and masked it as a nice website that collected money for charity.

  As angry as I was, I couldn’t dwell on them because I needed to get back to answering e-mails. Since Monday, I had been a call-in guest on almost fifteen radio shows. So I tried to put negative websites in the back of my mind and get on with it.

  Later that evening, I scheduled an interview with a radio show called The Tom Leykis Show. I didn’t know who Tom Leykis was, but apparently he had a syndicated afternoon drive-time show that aired in about one hundred cities across the country.

  I went to the post office to mail some of my eBay items that sold, and I brought my cell phone with me because I knew I wouldn’t be home in time to call from there. When I was done, I sat down on a park bench and called. I thought it would take about five or ten minutes like all the others had.

  They put me on the air, and the host seemed kind of nice. He just asked me what the deal with my website was and I told him. Then he asked me if I would take some calls from listeners, and I agreed. A few seconds later, they connected a male caller.

  “Hey, Karyn,” he said.

  “Hi!” I said in my usual chipper voice.

  “I just want to tell you that you are a dirty twat! You are nothing but a whore! Why don’t you go sell your body somewhere, you slut!” he said.

  “Um…,” I said, shocked. I didn’t think that you could talk like that on the radio. I waited for the host to disconnect him, but he didn’t.

  “Karyn, are you going to answer him?” Tom Leykis said.

  “Um, because I decided to start a website instead,” I said.

  “I’d like to punch you in your face! I bet you are a big fat pig!�
� he yelled again. Still no one disconnected him.

  “Karyn?” Tom said again. “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, um,” I said, stuttering, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to hang up because I didn’t want to let someone get to me. But I also wasn’t going to fight and argue back because I’m sure that’s what the host and the producer wanted. So for the next few minutes, I just continued to take this guy’s crap, and still didn’t hang up when they connected another male caller.

  “You are nothing but a whore. What the hell is wrong with you? You money-grubbing bitch!” he said.

  I continued to listen and answer calmly. I refused to stoop to their level. I just said, “Hun, can you speak more slowly? I can’t understand you when you scream.”

  During the first break, the producer came on the phone and said, “Oh, you are doing a great job!” trying to butter me up. I told him that I had to go, but he kept saying, “Oh, just one more segment.” So I continued to take more calls because I didn’t want to be “the girl who couldn’t take it” and hung up. I just kept thinking that maybe a nice person would call in.

  But I was wrong; one after another for the next hour, every caller slammed me. They weren’t just like “You suck.” They were brutal. But I kept my cool.

  When it was finally over, I hung up the phone and just dropped my head. I was mortified. I was so upset. I began to think that maybe I should take my site down. I thought it was all in good fun. I didn’t mean for anti-Karyn sites to pop up. I didn’t mean for people to call me a whore. The whole way home, I walked with my head down. I felt like a loser. I felt like giving up. I felt so beat up. I should have hung up the phone at the beginning. I should have never let so many people bash me for an hour. I was so embarrassed. Just to think that that had aired in over one hundred cities.

  When I got home the first thing I did was check my e-mail. When I clicked on my inbox, I was astounded to see so many new messages. And almost every one said “You have received money through PayPal.” They were all donations! As I opened them up, the attached notes said things like “You did a good job, girl!” and “Way to go not stooping to their level!” Another said, “I hate Tom Leykis and I don’t know why I listen to him! I hope you succeed!” I even got pity money. More than one person said things like “I felt so sorry for you that I had to give you a few bucks!” What I didn’t know before I called into the show, which people filled me in on through the e-mails, was that Tom Leykis apparently challenged his listeners to be as mean to me as they could. Whoever was able to make me hang up the phone would win something. All of a sudden, I was proud of myself for not hanging up! Yay! By the end of the night, I received almost $300! So ha, Tom Leykis! Thanks for the publicity!

  The next morning I woke up and got ready to go to Judi’s séance. Before I left, I checked my e-mail. Maybe it was because of the radio show the night before, but some of the e-mails seemed to take a different tone. In addition to some more lighthearted ones saying that I had been subscribed to over one hundred porn sites, I also got e-mails that were really, really mean. They said things like “I hope you die of cancer” and “I hope you get a venereal disease, preferably AIDS, and die, bitch.” In addition to those, I got “I hope a terrorist flies a plane into your house” and “I hope someone rapes you.”

  It was kind of unbelievable how some people could be so nice and generous, and others could be so hateful. I finally clicked on an e-mail that said “I would take my site down if I were you” in the subject line.

  This is floating all over Internet chat boards. I would hate to be you.

  Karyn E. Bosnak is pathetic. She is the epitome of the average “run of the mill,” poor excuse using, same as the rest, poor slobs that give this country a bad appearance. You know why? She is weak. She was given the opportunity to use money loans from established businesses and in return she signed her name stating SHE would pay them back. Then poor little Karyn decides she just can’t control her urges and she just can’t stop buying things until all the money lent to her, is gone. She obviously has no self-control. She will probably end up filing bankruptcy in the long run anyway because this pathetic attempt at paying back the creditors is not doing a damn thing.

  On her site she lists a small list of her balances, her eBay funds and the donations and then her payments. Then she deducts that from her credit balance? Well first off now we know why she is in the position she is in. She must be forgetting about the interest accumulating each month? She can’t be that naïve, can she? For instance if she really did put 1102.67 towards the balance of $19,533.72 total debt from July 14,2002, her new balance would be around $18,543.37. Here is why. We don’t know what her interest rate on the credit is, so even if we give her a low rate of even 6.900% for the whole amount, which would be good, her balance would be reduced by about 990.00. The interest would still eat up over 100.00 each month, so even if she could make these kinds of payments towards her overall credit debt each month she is still going to end up paying a lot more than she thinks she owes in the long run. Even at a 6.900% interest rate it would take years to finally pay off. I don’t believe that she cares about the interest rates and taxes in the future, (like she says on her site) simply because she was careless with her OWN financial being, so why would she care about people she doesn’t know? This little yuppie-gone-bust is not honest.

  On her site you will notice her sitting in front of her laptop. Laptops are not cheap. If she was hard up for cash wouldn’t it be wise to sell the luxury laptop and just work on a decent cheap desktop while she pays everything off. She is broke but she can pay for her domain name and have it hosted monthly too? I believe she is taking advantage of people in this country because we are giving people. The sick thing is, that she lives in the same state where one of the biggest tragedies of all time happened to the people of our country. Yes she lives in New York and she wants to take advantage of the people. She won’t even show her pathetic face on her poorly designed website. I despise this poor excuse she is using to get donations. It is very sad. She is not broke by any means. Yet she continues to tell people she is. She is lying. She says on her website, “Maybe it was too many morning lattes that pushed me over the edge, maybe it was the Prada pumps that I bought on eBay.” So I’m going to give you guys a little info on this little scam artist. Here’s her story….

  Name:

  Karyn E. Bosnak

  Address:

  (insert my real home address here)

  BROOKLYN, NY 11201

  Phone:

  (insert my real home phone number here)

  Karyn E. Bosnak lived in Chicago, IL, Champaign, IL, and now in New York, NY, ripping people off. Karyn ran in the “Race for the Cure” Chicago 5K on September 18, 1999, her running number was 1584 and she came in 135th and it took her 29:04 minutes. She was only 26 at the time. She currently resides in NY with her boyfriend. Give ’em a call!

  It’s sick what things you can find on the net, aint it? THE TRUTH

  After my “yuppie-gone-bust” ass stopped freaking out because my full name, home address and phone number were floating around the Internet, I gathered my thoughts. Breathe. Okay. First of all, I had no idea how anyone figured out my name. But if they did, then it would be easy to find out where I lived and my phone number because I was listed.

  In regards to the interest, there was none on the $10,000 American Express bill. And on the other cards it was pretty minimal. So rather than figuring it all out every single week, I just decided to scrap it from the website altogether, and if at the end I ended up owing an extra $500 or something, then I’d just finish paying it off myself. That did not make me not honest. If anything I would end up undercollecting, not overcollecting.

  Also, in regard to my laptop, assuming she didn’t just DIE on me and I did in fact sell her, I seriously might have gotten $400. Maybe. And I wouldn’t be able to get a desktop for that price. And what kind of idiot would sell
their computer anyway? Having one is a necessity in today’s society. I cannot live without one. It’s kind of like under-eye cream. It’s something that everyone needs.

  And as for paying for my domain name, by this point some dude from Register.com had contacted me and refunded my initial $35 fee, and my $14.95 monthly charge, and said they would continue to waive the fees. They liked my website. So it was free. But I didn’t want to put that on my website because I didn’t want people to send them hate mail for fear that they might change their mind.

  But it was kind of funny that whoever wrote the e-mail performed an Internet search on me and the only thing they found was that I ran a race for the cure. It was a race to raise money for breast cancer research—a race for charity. That’s the only thing they could find and they wrote it like they were revealing that I was an ex-con or something.

  “That Karyn is a bad person! She ran the race for the cure! Can you believe her? Let’s get her!”

  And they posted my time! Which some might say was pretty good! And they actually did. I got a few e-mails from people who saw the posting on message boards that said “Nice time on your race, by the way!” and “You can join our running league any time!” Some other people who saw it e-mailed the webmasters of whatever sites they found it on and asked them to remove it because of my personal information. And a lot of them did. They kind of had to because it was a safety issue. But all in all, for someone to do that because they didn’t like my website was just wrong.

  Aside from my name, address and phone number, the only other thing that I was bummed about was my age, which I was still lying about. I had decided to use this as an opportunity to take three years off!

  When Scott—who is not my boyfriend—woke up, I told him about the e-mail and called the phone company to have our number changed to a nonpublished number. I also told my neighbors in case weirdos started lurking around.