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Eric Aursby is a defamator who attempted to defame YouTuber magician Rahat Hossain. Aursbury posted various videos on his YouTube channel which has since been deleted saying that Hossain never gave him money from a fundraiser that was made to help Aursby.
Biography
In a video which was posted on March 4, 2014, Hossain Eric Aursby using a "losing" lottery ticket. After receiving the money, Eric tried to give Hossain half of the money, which Hossain declined to take.
In the following weeks, Hossain posted another video in which he said that people (who were touched by Eric wanting to give half of the money to Hossain) asked how they could donate money to help Eric. Hossain set up a fundraiser, the goal being to collect a total of $20,000. The fundraiser collected more than $44,000 to a final tally of $66,000 from over 3,000 donors. Hossain said that he wanted to "improve his lifestyle" and emphasized Eric's personality. While collecting the money, Eric moved into a hotel room and was given a job at 7-Eleven. However, Hossain would later reveal that Eric never showed up for his work, telling Hossain that he "was tired and didn't feel like it". On May 7, 2014, Hossain uploaded a video to YouTube titled "Homeless Man Gets A Home" The video shows Hossain offering to buy dinner for Eric, but first Hossain says he has to stop by "his" house to get something which was shown to be a house bought for Eric. It was later revealed that it was paid for by thousands of online contributors. In a matter of days, the video received about 9 million views.
In February 2018, a video which contained an interview of Eric, claimed that he did not have access to the money and the house needed constant maintenance. He also alleged that he had not received any of the money raised from the fundraiser, he only stayed in the house from Hossain's second video for two months rather than a year and sometime after Eric left, the house was sold for $61,000 ($5,000 less than the amount raised in the fundraiser). Hossain responded on June 5, 2018, in a since-deleted Twitter post stating that the money was transferred to Eric and that he would provide bank statements to prove his innocence.
In June 2018, Eric stated he no longer wanted the money from Hossain and forgave him for his actions. In a July 2018 interview, Eric again began accusing Hossain of keeping most of the money from the fundraiser.
On August 3, 2020, a YouTube channel called JayLaw made a documentary about Hossain's 'disappearance' from social media and YouTube. In the documentary, he investigates what actually happened to Hossain and the scandal surrounding him and Eric. He also ended up contacting Trey, Hossain's ex-cameraman, where he confirms Hossain's innocence, as Trey himself was also part of the ''Homeless Lottery Winner'' and "Homeless Man Gets A Home" and confirmed Hossain is still around.
On November 18, 2020, Hossain returned to YouTube, ending his hiatus since the beginning of 2018. Hossain describes his side of the story and the personal struggles he faced dealing with the aftermath of the "scandal". He also proceeded to show all of the evidence (bank checks he wrote) of him giving money to Eric, hence showing that Eric had been lying the entire time. Eric has since deleted his YouTube channel.