Story-telling is story-telling, you know you're reading fiction. This kind of thing is lying, and lies are bad, because they poison the 'great web of causality' and can do lots of damage in completely unpredicatble ways.
Every time you give either time and/or money, you absolutely always could possibly get scammed so the only way you can deal with this is asking yourself if you for yourself and your own sake care and want to do something or if you will just quietly follow whatever story is being told and not let it mess with you.
If what you say is true and some forum posts could indeed "do lots of damage" then it is all the more necessary that people wake up and understand that they shouldn't just blindly trust people on the web, just as much as they don't blindly trust strangers on the street.