I would say that this is really, really dumb.
Then I remember that I personally know someone who, in real life, believed again and again a leech of a person who kept bleeding them dry. Even when his entire family and most of his friends kept telling him he was just being used.
Fragile people and desperate people do immensely stupid things, because they cannot accept that they have been lied to and used....
While this chapter was a bit over the top, I assure you these kind of things do happen more often than you would believe...