This guy has more stories than Aesop's has fables. Apparently, he used to run ads enticing folks to pay for banner tow training. When folks would pay he would run them around a bit and then refuse to pay them back.
My company contracts with corporations worldwide to fly aerial messages all over the USA. We contracted with this fellow to fly a personal message for one of our clients who was proposing marriage to his fiancee of 5 years.
We sent a check to pre-pay; two days before the flight he called us to let us know the check had not arrived.
We overnighted a money order via FedEx and emailed them the tracking number so they could be reassured.
The message was supposed to fly Saturday, April 15
The client started calling in a panic Saturday night and then Sunday as well. This guy had come down to Florida from Connecticut, had been planning the surprise for six months; we called and emailed Tim for information.
Finally, Monday we received an email message that informed us that he had not received any payment and had therefore not flown. He claimed that he had, however, made up the message template and paid a pilot to wait around. For some reason he had not attempted to contact us in any manner.
This is where he started to get sleazy.
He returned the original check; however, 10 days after he received the money order we still had not received the money order back; all calls were ignored.
On April 26 we learned from our bank that he cashed it as soon as he got it (Monday April 17).
I called their cell number 386-295-2222 and spoke with a woman; I told her the details of the situation. She told me they had cashed our $300 money order to cover the cost of having the pilot oncall and making up the the letter template.
We started investigating and found out that these folks have been scamming people for years. I'm surprised they are not in jail; hopefully one day very soon they wil be.
0 comments