Last year I was emailed by a character who called himself Quincy Williams who had the utmost desire for me to teach his son Taijiquan. I was surprised at this as this was he lived in London and I lived in Bedford. I suggested that he go to a more local teacher , of which there are many, but he insisted that he wanted his son to learn from me and me alone.
His story became more elaborate as he attempted to draw me into his web od deceipt. He claimed that he was going away for six months and would rent an apartment for his son and an appropriate guardian fo him in Bedford and that he would pay me in advance for the full years training plus incidental expenses. Click here to see the emails
It was about this time I learnt that there was a scammer doing the rounds of all Tai Chi instructors with a similar story to the one mentioned above. So I decided to do some research into scams and came across this The Tutor Scam which seemed to desscribe this fellow's activity to the letter.
I sent him an email with a link to this web page and asked him to submit his bona fides to me so that I could verify who he was and if his request was genuinie.
Unsurprisingly he did not respond to that email. However over the subsequent months he kept sending me emails claiming that the cheque was in the post.
There is one thing about the Tutor Scam that I don't think they thought through too much and that is I don't do refunds. Of course you will have to read the that in my terms and conditions item 6 , which are on my site but which are not linked to and then I have printed it in white text on a white background just in case they guessed the page name. Click Here For the Terms and Conditions
In any event if he had asked me for his money back I could always have fallen back on the standard refrain "The cheque's in the post.