‘Phoney’ tour co-ordinator defrauds group

Oct 08, 2009 News

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The desire to travel abroad has cost a 42-member group to lose million of dollars. The unsuspecting individuals were fleeced US$720 each after they were promised a trip to Canada.
According to Colin Woolford, one of the victims of the multi-million-dollar fraud, Neil Stephenson was the man who was organising the tour and he turned out to be a clever con artist who was able to squeeze thousands of dollars from his victims.
Woolford said that Stephenson who normally organise trips to a number of destinations including Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, owns W.D.A.Y.L Tours that they later found out it was unregistered.
Woolford, who spoke on behalf of a group that visited Kaieteur News to tell their story, said that Stephenson was organising for the group to visit Canada from June 16 to June 30, last, a trip that was supposed to be sponsored by the Canadian Heritage Trust in association with Centennial College.
The man initially told them that the tour could only accommodate ten but in their quest to go overseas a total of 42 persons approached Stephenson to be a part of the trip.
He subsequently told them that they had to make an initial payment of US$150 each which they were told was an administrative fee needed to offset the visa fee and other miscellaneous expenses.
As if that was not enough, the man requested a further US$170, and according to the group, the members were told that this was needed to pay for meals, accommodation and tours upon arrival in Canada.
The payments did not include air fares.
They were told that they had to make the payment before November 28, 2008 and they all complied. The group said they did not suspect that the man was a fraudster since he had taken people on tours before.
“He mek we feel comfortable and then he mek the big haul”. According to the group, they all registered and were eagerly awaiting their trip to Canada.
The man called another meeting and told his unsuspecting victims that their applications had been made and they needed to secure their flights to Canada so that when they get their visas there will be no problems getting a flight for the date they set aside to travel.
The group said that they were encouraged to pay another US$400 dollars which represented half the fee for the ticket to Canada.
The fraudster told the group that he knew someone at Caribbean Airlines and if they make that part payment they would be assured that when the time comes, they will get a flight for their trip.
Again they all paid this amount to the man. According to Colin Woolford, 2008 came and went and it was at the beginning of 2009 that they became concerned.
He said that the group then inquired from Stephenson about the length of time that passed and they were not hearing from the embassy.
The victims said that soon after that discussion with Stephenson, they all received letters that purportedly came from the Canadian Embassy informing them that their applications for visas were denied and with it their non-refundable US$150 registration fee.
But the group members said they found it strange that all 42 members were denied visas after some members had travelled before.
What set off alarm bells was the refusal stamp that was placed in their passports. It was different from the Canadian Embassy’s stamp. It had no reference number and the dates were printed in the reverse.
One victim had two passports stapled together—the cancelled passport and the new document. The refusal stamp was mistakenly placed in the cancelled passport and when the mistake was detected by the man, the same stamp was placed in the valid passport.
The group subsequently contacted the immigration department and learnt that the stamp was a forgery.
Realising that they were fleeced, they made a report to the police and Stephenson was called in.
He promised that he would have repaid all of the money by the end of that month. When that time came Stephenson did not honour his promise.
The group said they were told that the man and his family left soon after for a vacation in the USA.
That was the last time they saw or heard from the man. One family reportedly paid the man over one million dollars for the Canadian trip.
Another group was fleeced of $290,000 per person for a Barbados trip that was promised by Stephenson. Again the man requested that the money be paid directly to him since he wanted to seal the transactions himself.
They too are yet to get any word from Stephenson. Members of both groups are of the view that the man had his dubious intentions a long time ago but he needed to gain their trust before he could have pulled off the scam.
In total, the man (Neil Stephenson) has conned both groups of over seven million dollars and has never been seen since.

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