What do you do with the phony requests from
Recently, we have been getting e-mail requests from “deaf” people, asking for a trainer for a group of their female relatives who will be arriving to me by taxi. The person requesting is never from the USA, and we know this is a scam. They are trying to give payment with phony means, then ask for a refund. When they get the refund, the original form of payment is declined, and the trainer is out the $. We would like to try and stop this charade. When we write back that these requests are being forwarded to the FBI, the chain of communication stops. Anyone else have a solution? I know that trainers are falling into this trap and losing big dollars.
Hi Pedro,
I know the type of “person” which you are describing here. I had the same experience as you are describing and of course I didn’t fall for it. This was as a result of an ad that I posted on CL. I forwarded his number and texts to the FBI, so they can have it in their records. I would suggest for others to do the same. Thanks for posting this up here.
Thank you for posting about this issue. We have heard from other fitness professionals with a similar problem. While there is nothing we can do about it after the fact, as we are not able to track this person down, we suggest not responding to an initial request that seems out of the ordinary in the future. Please let us know if you receive any requests via IDEA FitnessConnect, so that we can try to track them down.
Kelli Davis
IDEA Health & Fitness Association
Hi Kelli,
Yes, there was a different person who did contact me via text who said he found my name at IDEA. His deal was that he has a group of 6 people (all members of his “family”) and he wanted me to train them. I was very suspicious about this case because he wanted to hire a bus and drive them to my location when I clearly mentioned to him I don’t have a facility where I train people. And then he pulled the same tactic as Pedro mentioned in his question (and as I’ve mentioned in my previous answer). He would only communicate with me via text because he said he was “deaf”. This person’s number was 678-803-3944 in case anyone else here receives a text or a call from that number.
