How Social Media Helped a Dad Who Lost His Savings to 'Evil Carnies'

A cautionary tale became a story of compassion when social media users rallied to help a man who lost his life savings trying to win an X-Box for his kids in a carnival game and walked away with nothing but a stuffed banana with dreadlocks as a prize.

A cautionary tale became a story of compassion when social media users rallied to help a man who lost his life savings trying to win an X-Box for his kids in a carnival game and walked away with nothing but a stuffed banana with dreadlocks as a prize.

After local news station WBZ-TV picked up the story, editors at CollegeHumor offered to buy the banana from Henry Gribbohm for $2,600 (the full amount that was lost) and give the man an X-Box Kinect if readers would generate 30,000 Facebook Likes for their post about the story.

Not everyone who read the man’s tale felt sorry for him, pointing out that $2,600 is a lot of money to wager on a gaming console that only costs a couple hundred dollars in stores.

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