I'm so totally bummed. Especially since my students went out of town & didn't tell me. I rented space for us for 3 consecutive weeks and NO SHOW, NO CALL...now, I'm practically giving them lessons for free because of the out of pocket that I have already put out.

Sorry about the rant, but that just bugs me. Scammers have nothing better to do!

After I read this posting I sent "Terry Allen" an email asking who he is...of course, no reply.

Comfort Lewis....(see other posting) had some weird response for me too.

GRRRR......

Yes, this person wants you to send them money, but won't send you any, or their check will bounce, and you'll be out whatever you sent. Don't have any more dealings with this person.

Or, if you'd like to respond, use this part of a response I have for potential fraud:

I am concerned now about the nature of this transaction, given that similar methods have been used for fraud. I'm sure you understand my concern given the current rash of fraudulent sales activities via internet.

I trust, therefore, that you'll understand my request for the following information prior to our continued negotiation:

1. Your mailing address.
2. Your HOME telephone number (no cell phones, please).
3. If you are from the EC, please include the number of your EC Identity Card.

I greatly look forward to hearing from you and remain,

With Very Highest Regards,

XXX (your name)

If you are unable or unwilling to provide this information, please contact me (via email) within the next 72 hours! In other cases, please note that your name, email address, and email routing information at the bottom of every email will be logged for legal archival information as possibly participating in felonious international activity and will be reported to international authorities (including INTERPOL). Please note that this email routing information is available through tracking services even if the information has been deleted via the email JAVA code manipulation.




Try it. It's a perfectly reasonable request. Send this to your person, and I doubt that you'll ever hear from her/him again!

Me too! It's Sept 29, 2005 and he just wrote to me about his PA overpaying (or is "she amanda?") and to send back thousands of $$$ via western union. That's when I finally pulled my head out and found these postings on Tribe.net

Thanks you all sooooo much for being found on a google search! Is there anyway to bust this person? Have any friends in the UK? I haven't replied again yet...what should I do now?

He (if he is a he) was calling himself Lawrence Carter and his daughter AMANDA BOLADE.

This is todays entire message (maybe he should get a new PA...she's always making this mistake):
Thanks so much for being here!
--Rebekah
*************
Hello,

Good news! I have just been informed by my PA that payment has been sent and you
would unfailingly get it on or before friday. However, there has been a terrible
mistake with the funds my PA sent, my PA made a mistake of sending the ticketing
agents funds with yours. The total of $6,750 has been sent to you and apart from
your funds, the overage funds is meant for booking my daughter's flight down to the
US. In this event, you are subsequently required to send the overage funds back as
soon as you get the payment as there is limited time left. I have informed the
ticketing agent about this horrible mistake as well and have informed her to
anticipate payment from you in the near future and she has requested the funds be
sent to him via Western Union Money Transfer. Please, find below her information
to which payment would be sent via Western Union to the ticketing agent:

NAME: AMANDA BOLADE
ADDRESS: 10 STEEL ROAD
LEYTON, E7 2AR
LONDON, UK.

As soon the funds have bent sent to the ticketing agent, my daughter's flight would
be booked and make her way down to the US for her holidays and resume her lessons
and i am hoping you would give her good lessons she would always remember. I
await your anticipated response as soon as possible, thanks.

Lawrence.

another scam (OK its a joke):

WARNING: If a man comes to your front door and says he is conducting a survey and asks you to show him your breasts, DO NOT show him your breasts.

This is a scam and he is only trying to see your breasts.

I feel so dumb.

Hello All,

I wanted to let you all know that I was a victim of this scam. I am working with the FBI to resolve the issue, but I have no hope of getting any of the money back. All my emails to/from the infamous Terry Allen are saved and have been printed out and given to the FBI. The sad truth is that no one else can help. My local police department was called off the case, as it is federal. The FBI has little time to work on it, as the hurricane event is taking priority over standard items.

I believe that this presents a very dangerous problem though. Whether internationally or locally, the CASHIERS CHECK or indeed *any* kind of CHECK is not an acceptable form of payment anymore. Banks are required to provide money to you in three days (as mentioned above) despite the check not clearing. Checks can take forever to be cleared. The bank tells you to call the issuing bank before using money from someone you don't know to be sure that the check is cleared. However, even if the issuing bank tells you the check is cleared, they are *STILL* not liable for the funds given to you (temporarily) if the check is determined to be counterfeit later. This holds for bogus cashiers checks and personal checks. And the amount of time that the banks have to determine that a check is counterfeit is up to five years. So, any money you think you have can be pulled back up to five years from the date received (!!!).

Basically, in the future I will only accept cash or wire transfers as forms of payment. Nothing else is reliable, and after having lost a considerable amount of money, I am no longer willing to take the risk of "trusting" someone when there are so many scammers out there. From the time you deposit a check into your account, *YOU* are liable for that money, not any bank, when the funds don't come through from someplace else.

Good luck to you all. I am very glad this thread was posted. If anyone has any further questions about Terry Allen or this scam, I am happy to help if I can. It is important that this scam does not happen to any more people!!!

Note that I did not wire transfer any money, but I sent a cashiers check to a person in Maryland, who then cashed the check. This is a HUGE fraud ring, and I hope the perpetrators are caught. Another nice twist, the person is Maryland is supposedly deaf, so you don't ever get to talk to a person on the end of the line, just the operator exchange. The money cannot be retrieved because in the law's eyes that person did not do anything wrong (ha ha ha).

Hi All,

Just wanted to post an email which I received just now. Sounds like the same scam, just a different scammer. :P Beware, beware, beware. I emailed back saying I would be happy to interact IN PERSON and that all payment must be in CASH along with proof of proper identity.

Regards,
Vashti


Email from: seann_moore@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 20:32:08

HELLO,
MY NAME IS MRS MOORE,I AM FROM THE BELGIUM. I WILL LIKE YOU TO TEACH MY DAUGHTER HOW TO DO BELLY DANCING.I WILL LIKE THESE TUTION TO BE 2HRS DAILY.3-TIMES A WEEK WHICH WILL LAST FOR A PERIOD OF 1 AND HALF MONTHS BECAUSE THAT IS THE DURATION SHE WILL BE STAYING IN ARIZONA UNITED STATE OF AMERICA.I WILL LIKE YOU TO KINDLY DO ME THE CALCULATIONS FOR THE TUITION FOR THE 1 AND HALF MONTHS PERIOD.I WILL ALSO LIKE YOU TO KNOW THAT SHE IS AT PRESENT WITH HER FATHER ON A BUSINESS SURVEY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON. NOTE ALSO THAT I WILL PROVIDE AN APARTMENT FOR HER OVER THERE IN THE U.S AND SHE WILL BE COMING TO YOUR PLACE FOR THE TUTION.
REGARDS MRS MOORE.

There was a little feature about this whole scam on the local news last night (SF Bay Area). they even interviewed a local dancer, Sandra Troutman (a friend of mine), who admitted she almost fell for it.

It's not just limited to dancers. Variations on it have occurred in all sorts of other fields, online auctions, etc.

At first I just glanced at it and recognized the format as "Scam" and then I read it again and just laughed!