Fraudulent contracts are not only issued by those with poor grammar. This email was forwarded to us by Pat Hurley. He writes: “Thank you for warning other speakers. These guys were good. The best I had seen. They even called me and praised the Lord on the phone. They had an Asian accent which was strange with the name Williams Smith.”
Warning: Speak Scam on the loose!
July 13th, 2009
Wanted to pass out a warning to all speakers, sales trainers and coaches. Seems as if this scam is being proposed to women only right now but who knows guys…you maybe next. Trouble with this one is it really does seem legit. The websites are pretty good and the organization and Pastor will take your calls. To be fair, I don’t really think he is a Pastor, just pretending to be one. The email, you will receive is as follows:
*****************************
Dear Colleen Francis,
My Name is Pastor William Smith from the London Youth Community Here in London UK. We want you to be our guest speaker at this Year LONDON YOUTH CONFERENCE which will take place here in UK. We are writing to invite and confirm your booking to be our Speaker at these year LONDON YOUTH CONFERENCE.
The Venue as follows:
VENUE: Holy Apostles Church Hall,
47 Cumberland Street,
Pimlico London, SW1V 4LY
Website.www.londonyc.org
Website.www.londonyouthconference(Under Construction)
Email: info@londonyc.org or w.smith@londonyc.org Expected audience: 2500 people Duration of speech per speaker: 1 Hour Name of Church/Organization: LONDON YOUTH COMMUNITY Tel Phone: + 44 7077-087-949
Topic: LOVE AND RELATIONSHIP
Date:19th of August 2009-23rd of August 2009 Website:www.londonyc.org
We came across your profile on http:canadianspeakers.org and we say it’s up to standard and we will be very glad to have such an outstanding personality in our mist for these overwhelming gathering. With your multi talented speech more lives will come close to GOD, Sorry about our late invitation it is due to the fact that our Speaker had back out because of her sudden illness.
Arrangements to welcome you here will be discussed as soon as you honor our invitation. If you have any more publicity material, please do not hesitate to contact me. A formal Letter of invitation would be sent to you as soon as you honor our invitation. We are taking care of your traveling and Hotel Accommodation expenses including your Speaker fees.
Stay Blessed
Williams Smith
w.smith@londonyc.org
LONDON YOUTH CONFERENCE
**************************************
Just delete it. If you do call they will ask for your credit card number to secure a UK visa (which if you are Canadian you don’t need for this type of work) and travel arrangements. They will send you a contract if you ask for one. It is signed, but its not on any letter head. At least 10 speakers I know in Canada have all received this and we have done a bunch of research and work sussing it out…so you don’t have to. Best to trust me, delete it an move on.
Time to put my energy to good use now….(but sad I don’t get to go to the UK)
Colleen
(thanks to Pat for forwarding and Colleen for exposing these criminals)
4 responses so far ↓
1 Alan K'necht // Aug 11, 2009 at 10:46 am
The scam continues and now they are targeting more diverse range of speakers.
I’m playing along with the gag so see how far they will go. I found it very suspicious to be offered an immediate opportunity to speak from an organization completely not in my field or relevant to what I speak on.
I then sent them a list of questions including a mention that I am suspicious of the email since their web site is down and conference is next week.
They then sent me the contract without answering any of my questions except to say the site is being update.
The fact they want me to send them my documentation before anything happens is the real tipping point. Of course if I did contact the British High Commission as they say to get a work permit, I’m sure they would have caught (at least I hope) the scam.
2 Steve // Aug 11, 2009 at 11:14 am
These continually get ‘better’- seasoned performers and speakers know what to look for, but some less experienced entertainers who are cash-strapped and desperate sometimes fail to see the obvious signs of fraud… and lose as a result. If you get any more from any source, please feel free to post them- the more of these scammers’ email addresses and info we can post will do the industry some good when these fools show up exposed in Google results.
3 Jennifer // Aug 25, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I got this same email (I’m in the US) thanks for the headsup!
4 THANK YOU // Sep 3, 2009 at 2:45 pm
thank you for exposeing this guy william smith, i just received my second email from him asking me to come and speak to the youth group. from the first email i received i knew it had to be one of those scams so i never went for it, and then this next one i decided to google this guy and found this post so i could send to others to expose him. thank you
pastor sissy of jesus set free deliverance ministry
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