60 young hockey players defrauded with bogus tournament scam

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090811/hockey_scam_090811/20090811?hub=TorontoNewHome

Wow, just sad. Non-existent Ontario Central Scouting promised a trip to a tournament in Paris. 60 hockey players were told they were picked, but had to come up with $3500 for expenses. They were told that scouts would be there and offers to play in Europe for 1-4 years would be had. Well, they've been had. When they arrived, there was no tournament, no games, no scouts.

And how much money could the fraudsters get from this, anyway? A plane trip and a week's accommodation would take a large chunk out of the $3500 fee.

Shameful and stupid.

What a shame... very sad. Hopefully they can re-coup some money but I see there was some nasty fine print in their contract...

"Games and locations subject to change without notice."

They ended up paying $3500 to go over to France to play each other (other OCS teams) and didn't get anything they were hoping for.

What can be done about this? Report them to the Better Business Bureau? Suing them will probably cost the lot more than they spent... unless a lawyer does it pro bono.

What a twisted thing to do, wow! That really sucks. I don't even know what to say because there seems to be something fishy about the contract they signed...very odd stuff. The website no longer exists for OCS...did they even make any money off of this? It doesn't make sense at all, a flight to Europe could go up to the $1,500 range. Why did they bother?

SensGirl11 wrote:What a twisted thing to do, wow! That really sucks. I don't even know what to say because there seems to be something fishy about the contract they signed...very odd stuff. The website no longer exists for OCS...did they even make any money off of this? It doesn't make sense at all, a flight to Europe could go up to the $1,500 range. Why did they bother?

They probably got a group rate or chartered plane or something so it wasn't quite that much. But still if it was it's still $2000 profit a head, which if you multiply that by 60 kids, you get $120,000.

Peel Regional Police's Fraud Department is looking into the matter...

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/679851

Not sure what would come of that though.

And from that article it looks like this wasn't deliberate.

Judgest thou lest ye be judgesteth!

This sucks... my scam didnt work.

SeawaySensFan wrote:And from that article it looks like this wasn't deliberate.

Judgest thou lest ye be judgesteth!

DTR? Is that you?

shabbs wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:And from that article it looks like this wasn't deliberate.

Judgest thou lest ye be judgesteth!

DTR? Is that you?

Neely4Life wrote:This sucks... my scam didnt work.

I knew you were behind this...

Neely4Life wrote:This sucks... my scam didnt work.

you were supposed to drop them off in Paris Ontario

Tuk Tuk wrote:

Neely4Life wrote:This sucks... my scam didnt work.

you were supposed to drop them off in Paris Ontario

that'd be one small plane....
or else, it'd be a very short stop on the runway.