Rachel Wimberly

Scam Artist Back Again

At the beginning of 2007, I stumbled upon a story that seemed implausible at the time. It ended up mushrooming into a three-part series about a woman who called herself Kristen Martin and got caught pulling off a tradeshow con.

The long and the short of it involved Martin recruiting people on Monster.com for a company called the Natl. Expo Group to sell exhibit space for nonexistent tradeshows, cleverly titled things like Natl. College Expo. Unsuspecting people bought booth space to the phony shows. Not only did they lose money, but the people hired to sell the space – most of whom were stay-at-home moms or others that needed work – were never paid.

Even though local law enforcement in the San Francisco Bay area (and the FBI at one point) got involved, Kristen Martin was slick enough to slip through the cracks and seemingly disappear. That is, until recently.

The other day I received a phone call from the loss prevention department at Six Flags corporate office and a person (who asked not to be named) wanted to know what I knew about the Natl. Expo Group. Apparently, now Kristen Martin calls herself Amanda Jackson and, on a Web site for Enlighten College Expo, Six Flags is listed not once, but twice, as a location for this latest expo.

Of course, Six Flags had no agreement whatsoever to host the Enlighten College Expo at any of their locations, and their loss prevention person wanted to know what the company should do to protect itself.

I highly suggested having Six Flags’ lawyers fire off a cease-and-desist letter immediately to the address provided on the Enlighten College Expo Web site. Also, I suggested calling the San Francisco detective who originally investigated the case and just missed nabbing Martin, or whatever her name is, and giving him a heads up that she was back in the con game.

Maybe, just maybe, he’ll catch her this time.

Posted by Rachel Wimberly on September 15, 2008 | Comments (0)