One woman didn't want her boyfriend to go away to school so she faked a rejection letter from his dream school. A mistake that could end up costing her $265,000.
His name is Eric Abramovitz and he's an accomplished clarinet player that has worked hard to get accepted to the school of his dreams, but he never heard from the school of his dreams.
When his acceptance letter arrived via email in 2014, Abramovitz's girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Lee, deleted the email because she didn't want him to go away to school. In fact she fabricated an entire rejection email from the school and sent that to him instead. Understandably he was crushed. The full scholarship would have included tuition, room and board which was worth about $50,000 per year and could have set him up for a high-paying symphony career.
First she replied to the school and turned down the opportunity and then deleted the acceptance email. She even went a step further and created an email address from the world renowned instructor that wanted Abramovitz in his class and sent him the rejection email.
Two years go by since the rejection. Abramovitz and his girlfriend have broken up for reasons unrelated to the rejection email and he is now applying to USC where the same teacher, Yehuda Gilad, also teaches. The two men who each thought they rejected each other started talking about the rejection and at first Abramovitz assumed he was confusing him with another student.
It wasn't until his classmates started asking him why he rejected the Colburn offer when he started thinking something was fishy and then his friends got involved thinking that the ex-girlfriend may have had something to do with it. His friend's investigated the email address that the rejection letter came from and traced it back to the ex-girlfriend's recovery email information and discovered she was the one responsible.
"It was a simultaneous stab to the back and the heart," Abramovitz said. "It really was the last person I would have wanted to find out it was."
When served with papers to appear in court, Lee did not respond nor did she even show up in court, so she lost by default.
Under Canadian law, a defendant in default "is deemed to admit the truth of all allegations of fact" made by the plaintiff's claim if they do not show up in court. The court ruled that Lee will have to pay him $265,000 ($350,000 Canadian dollars) for damages including loss of reputation, educational opportunity and two years loss of potential income and $37,000 was added on by the judge for Lee's "despicable interference" in Abramovitz career.
The final outcome:
Abramovitz has a new girlfriend "We are coming up on two years soon and it is a really healthy relationship with trust and honesty," Abramovitz said. "I'd like to think my judgment of character has improved a little bit." and has found success in his professional life.
Abramovitz says he doesn't harbor any ill feelings towards his former girlfriend and hopes that she has learned a lesson and can live a more honest life.
"Despite what happened I think I landed on my feet and the trajectory I'm on is still what I wanted for myself," he said.