Black list
This little document is for the practical benefit of my travel
business colleagues. Although bad clients constitute a very small percentage of
my business, they tend to occupy a disproportionate amount of my attention (by
some reason they love letter writing are incessant callers) and leave us feeling
like shit, so posting them here is also for the therapeutic effect for me and
Olesya.
Please note only very clear cases make it to the list, and
before posting someone here I send several messages, including a notice my
registered mail. I also make sure that the person is alive to avoid an
embarrassing situation.
This Black List is NOT blackmail. Once your name appears here, I
will not take your payment and will not take your name off here. Once you are
here and you name shows up #1 in response to search queries I consider you as
having been punished and thus owing me nothing.
Bien Estopare of
7429 Forton Way,
San Diego, CA 92111, tel. (858) 278-3402, e-mail
Bienestopare@hotmail.com
requested me to release $130US cash to his Russian mail-order friend while he
would send me a cheque. After several "your cheque is in the mail" and "I lost
your address" I had no choice but to conclude that Russian mail-order bride
seeker Bien Estopare is a small-time scumbag. Summer 1999?
Allan Russel.....
Name withheld. I'll leave the name out because his
fellow did not feel my billing him was appropriate. Let the story however server
as an illustration. As I'm heading to my dacha I get a call to the effect that
it is a matter of life and death and I should drop everything else and visit his
girlfriend and deliver her flowers and that the errand is to be done by a older
teacher-type lady. My suggestion to wait till Monday, when all of us are ready
for business and getting things done was easier, was rejected. So I allowed
myself to be influenced by his hype and did hit the phone and after a while did
find an appropriate person, explained to her the importance and urgency of the
task, and left it to Olesya to check into getting flowers. Then his g/f showed
up, and flowers turned out expensive, and given the situation I sent the fellow
a $50 bill to cover some of my administrative time spent on trying to fulfill
his request. Even though he knew what my rate is, he declined to pay because, he
said, it turned out my services were not required at the end, and he is not
going to pay for what he didn't need. I spent 3 hours by the computer and the
phone exchanging messages with him and making calls on his behalf, and Olesya
probably wasted another couple of hours checking into buying flower. From what I
recall now, the the story ended till early Monday morning, when I had to get a
hold of the lady who was to make the delivery to cancel the trip. I did speak to
the fellow on the phone and felt his refusal to pay was not motivated by greed
so I will spare his name. Still, the same scenario repeated itself a couple of
times a year pushing me towards "I won't move a finger till you pay" policy.
Normally I waste an hours, not 5-6, on these "get a hold of my girlfriend or I
kill myself".
Hey, WK from UK, recognize yourself in the above story? GW,
sounds familiar?
Final official notification will be dispatched
shortly after which his name will appear here. xxxxx Westwick Court,
Sterling, Virginia 20165, tel. (703) xxxxxx, e-mail xxxxxx and xxxxx.
My job was (a) to read a lot of his sob; (b) process it into a singles
profile; and (c) translate replies. So I plowed my way through 70-100
messages with attachments, compiled his story, posted it, and translated
over 30 pages of his correspondence. A huge job, and both at the beginning
at through the process I was reminding this fellow that the bill will not
be small. The result: Check is in the mail, check got misdirected,
computer is down, trouble with the family story will he discontinued
contact. BTW, the profile was real good, and you can see it here for an
example of what we can do to make the last loser look good. [link]
Names withheld/forgotten but not stories.
Several fellows who gave me "the cheque is on the way" line to reserve my
apartment while there was no cheque and people of course gave me the
cancellation notice 2-3 days before their planned arrival.
PayPal. Their promise is to "transfer funds to
anyone with e-mail". My attempt to transfer money from my PayPal account
to my Royal Bank account resulted in them freezing my funds. It took at
least 10 e-mails from me and my clients and about the same number of calls
to get them to refund money to my clients. A lot of time wasted.
All problem individuals, without
exception, were Russian brides seekers. Two of them (est. 20%) were
lawyers.