How much money did Amanda Riley make through her scam? Details explored ahead of Scamanda on ABC

ABC News' latest true-crime docuseries, Scamanda, will be released on January 30, 2025. Earlier, a podcast of the same name dropped in May 2023 and recounted the story of Amanda Riley, where she scammed more than 300 people for 8 years.

Riley, a young mother of two children, faked having blood cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She created an elaborate online scam and urged people to donate for her cancer treatment throughout eight long years.

Years later, investigative producer Nancy Moscatiello drew to Riley's case after a tip, and she spent five years uncovering the elaborate facade that Riley has been playing on her friends, family, and the world.

Scamanda podcast offered its listeners a detailed picture of how Riley created this elaborate scam and extorted approximately $100,000 from donations to fund her fake cancer treatment.

ABC News' new four-part documentary about the same will shed light on her story with new interviews from friends, family, and a neuropsychologist.

More on ABC News' Scamanda in our story.

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ABC News Scamanda: How did Amanda Riley scam people for eight years?

ABC News' latest documentary will investigate how Amanda Riley scammed many people in her life from 2012 and 2019, by asking them to donate for her fake cancer treatment.

Riley ran her personal blog online and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, where she documented her 'cancer treatment' journey to establish her scamming facade. She regularly updated this blog with unfiltered pictures of herself at the hospital receiving cancer treatment.

Her pictures would include her with IV drips and chemo ports. She even went as far as shaving her head and went completely bald to keep up her facade. According to a press release by the United States District Court, Northern District of California, Riley was not ready to 'give up', despite her diagnosis.

She set up online fundraisers and in-person events, where many people would donate to help her with her expensive treatment. But in reality, they would directly go into her account, which was accumulated to $100,000 at the end of 2019.

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Was Riley convicted for her scam?

Riley was found guilty of wire fraud and was sentenced to prison for 60 months; she was also asked to pay back the amount she raised through donations and refund all her victims.

Moscatiello, who helped uncover the truth about Riley's fraud, is also involved in ABC Scamanda and serves as an executive producer of the podcast, which was hosted by Charlie Webster. The new docuseries will feature conversations with Webster and evidence from Moscatiello, which she collected throughout her five years of investigation.

Her blog “Lymphoma Can Suck It” was deactivated from the Internet in 2020, when she was charged with fire fraud.

ABC Scamanda will also feature interviews with her family and friends, whose statements are also recorded in the transcripts from a May 2022 court hearing in San Jose.

According to Jessa Gonzalez, Riley's step-daughter:

“Amanda was always sick, never being able to get out of bed, but I would never see her go to appointments. She had always looked healthy. I noticed she would starve herself until she would pass out.”

She added:

“My hair is falling out from severe stress, and some days I can’t physically function because of how bad she has scarred me''

Catch Scamanda on ABC News on January 30, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET; The episodes will also air on Hulu the following day.

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