xcopperstax
Silver Member
- Sep 3, 2018
- 2,508
- 4,870
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett AT Max
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Message to all fellow TNetters: This true story happened to myself and two friends before I was a member of TNet, but I thought I would pass on this cautionary tale. This story is pretty embarrassing but maybe it will help somebody.
Ah the lure of treasure... It has brought many a good man and woman to their knees over the centuries.
In the world of scamming the public has limitless potential for a sharp witted criminal.
It was the perfect scam: A few Yankees separated by the Atlantic Ocean from their treasure dreams in England.
This was around Feb / March of 2018. A good metal detecting buddy mentioned that he might have found an affordable trip to England to do some metal detecting. It was a guided tour where they brought you to fields and provided you with lodging and food. My friend found this guy through one of the forums on this Tnet. He was advertising a standard 10 day trip but was willing to accommodate me on a slightly shorter version of the trip as I didn't have the time or money for the full deal. At first the communication was between those two and eventually I was corresponding with a person who went by the name Marc Benfield. That was from March 2018 - July 2018 We were supposed to do the trip in late September 2018. I could not wait. We were to fly in, get picked up, detect for a few days and then we were all going to Detectival for two days and then we were going to go mudlarking with Steve Brooker (had that all lined up that guy is amazing!) in London. Marc had a website heritagemetaldetectingtoursuk.com and a facebook page all depicting metal detecting. I looked at the page and facebook a few times and there was nothing to make me think it was anything but a metal detecting tour. I paid around 600.00 to book the trip and secure my spot. Marc was very patient and accommodating and answered all questions we had.. He could talk the talk. After another month or two I paid the balance of it that ended up being around 950.00 1300 in all. My friends also paid him and they went for the more expensive version that was around 2500.00 or so. In July we all got an email from Marc at 5 in the morning. He was so sorry but he had to cancel the trip because 6 people had unexpectedly dropped out of the trip, at the same time their office was coincidentally broken into and all the computers were stolen. I checked the website and it was no longer functioning. I emailed him back and he assured me that I would be refunded as soon as possible. That was the last any of us heard of him. No refund.
I immediately called the bank and put a stop payment on the two payments I had made. We all put in fraud claims. Here's the kicker. The first payment I made was with my credit card that got refunded. The second of 950.00 was a wire transfer to Heritage Tours and could not be refunded. How could I have been so stupid? This guy was a great scammer. Since I was paying less than the others he said that their computer program could not accept anything less than a full payment so they needed a wire transfer. I fell right into the trap. There were a couple other red flags we missed: The company was new so they didn't have a reputation / no past tours with photos to back them up but the website looked legitimate. The facebook page had a bunch of photos of Marc. What I didn't catch was that all the photos were from just far away enough or with shadows etc. that you couldn't really see his face. It seemed like he could talk the talk and nothing in the correspondence indicated anything suspicious. His FB page had pictures of people metal detecting and displaying finds.. I'm not very into FB so it looked good to me. After some investigation on FB: Marc Benfield seems to be a real person with links to real people and even has Benfield family members attached to his profile. I can't figure out if he's a FB account that someone hacked or if he really is a real person who set up this scam. Looking up his home address it looked like a housing project. That address may or may not be real but that should have set off some alarms if we thought to investigate where the tour operator lived (haha!) We'll probably never know. In all Marc stole around 6,300.00 dollars from us! This guy did quite a bit of work to do this... website, facebook, bank account, company, correspondence and just like that gone in a flash. The thing that is so mind blowing is that he sent this email to let us know it was done two months before the flight over. He could have kept the game up and we could have arrived in Heathrow airport and looked for the imaginary person who was to pick us up. If that happened I think I would dedicate the rest of my life to finding this guy.
The thing that is so frustrating is that we live in a modern era with time stamped video cameras etc. This guy had to go to Llyods Bank to withdraw the money and he had to go there to set up a bank account. He exists in the real world. There is absolutely a trail that leads to somebody but he'll never be caught because the people who investigate this kind of thing don't care about this kind of theft. To catch this guy would cost more money than he stole from us in time and effort by authorities! The crazy thing is that he probably roped a couple other people into this scam as well. If you walked into a store and took that much merchandise it's a felony. If you scam somebody out of it they won't do anything because its it happens all over the place every day. White collar crime pays serious money! I feel like if I were a little more computer savvy and had more means I could nail this guy. I really want to see him pay. I'm still mad. I've wasted hours of my finite life thinking about this guy not to mention the work I had to do to save this money that I lost. Writing about this is a means to let it go and get this injustice out of my head.
And what happened to our money? Did it go up Marc's nose, did he buy the sickest metal detector ever made, did he spend it all on chocolates for his mum? Or perhaps he chartered a private motorboat to Oak Island? I would love to know!
I am confident that this guy will be brought to task for this and if the law doesn't get him nature and life will. You can't escape your actions. I wonder what "Marc Benfield" is up to these days? Be careful out there if you are paying for something like this make sure it checks out as the real thing.
My goal is to someday go on one of the real legitimate tours that is out there. Marc? Can't wait to meet you by chance someday... in person.
As awful as this was I hope you enjoyed reading.
Ah the lure of treasure... It has brought many a good man and woman to their knees over the centuries.
In the world of scamming the public has limitless potential for a sharp witted criminal.
It was the perfect scam: A few Yankees separated by the Atlantic Ocean from their treasure dreams in England.
This was around Feb / March of 2018. A good metal detecting buddy mentioned that he might have found an affordable trip to England to do some metal detecting. It was a guided tour where they brought you to fields and provided you with lodging and food. My friend found this guy through one of the forums on this Tnet. He was advertising a standard 10 day trip but was willing to accommodate me on a slightly shorter version of the trip as I didn't have the time or money for the full deal. At first the communication was between those two and eventually I was corresponding with a person who went by the name Marc Benfield. That was from March 2018 - July 2018 We were supposed to do the trip in late September 2018. I could not wait. We were to fly in, get picked up, detect for a few days and then we were all going to Detectival for two days and then we were going to go mudlarking with Steve Brooker (had that all lined up that guy is amazing!) in London. Marc had a website heritagemetaldetectingtoursuk.com and a facebook page all depicting metal detecting. I looked at the page and facebook a few times and there was nothing to make me think it was anything but a metal detecting tour. I paid around 600.00 to book the trip and secure my spot. Marc was very patient and accommodating and answered all questions we had.. He could talk the talk. After another month or two I paid the balance of it that ended up being around 950.00 1300 in all. My friends also paid him and they went for the more expensive version that was around 2500.00 or so. In July we all got an email from Marc at 5 in the morning. He was so sorry but he had to cancel the trip because 6 people had unexpectedly dropped out of the trip, at the same time their office was coincidentally broken into and all the computers were stolen. I checked the website and it was no longer functioning. I emailed him back and he assured me that I would be refunded as soon as possible. That was the last any of us heard of him. No refund.
I immediately called the bank and put a stop payment on the two payments I had made. We all put in fraud claims. Here's the kicker. The first payment I made was with my credit card that got refunded. The second of 950.00 was a wire transfer to Heritage Tours and could not be refunded. How could I have been so stupid? This guy was a great scammer. Since I was paying less than the others he said that their computer program could not accept anything less than a full payment so they needed a wire transfer. I fell right into the trap. There were a couple other red flags we missed: The company was new so they didn't have a reputation / no past tours with photos to back them up but the website looked legitimate. The facebook page had a bunch of photos of Marc. What I didn't catch was that all the photos were from just far away enough or with shadows etc. that you couldn't really see his face. It seemed like he could talk the talk and nothing in the correspondence indicated anything suspicious. His FB page had pictures of people metal detecting and displaying finds.. I'm not very into FB so it looked good to me. After some investigation on FB: Marc Benfield seems to be a real person with links to real people and even has Benfield family members attached to his profile. I can't figure out if he's a FB account that someone hacked or if he really is a real person who set up this scam. Looking up his home address it looked like a housing project. That address may or may not be real but that should have set off some alarms if we thought to investigate where the tour operator lived (haha!) We'll probably never know. In all Marc stole around 6,300.00 dollars from us! This guy did quite a bit of work to do this... website, facebook, bank account, company, correspondence and just like that gone in a flash. The thing that is so mind blowing is that he sent this email to let us know it was done two months before the flight over. He could have kept the game up and we could have arrived in Heathrow airport and looked for the imaginary person who was to pick us up. If that happened I think I would dedicate the rest of my life to finding this guy.
The thing that is so frustrating is that we live in a modern era with time stamped video cameras etc. This guy had to go to Llyods Bank to withdraw the money and he had to go there to set up a bank account. He exists in the real world. There is absolutely a trail that leads to somebody but he'll never be caught because the people who investigate this kind of thing don't care about this kind of theft. To catch this guy would cost more money than he stole from us in time and effort by authorities! The crazy thing is that he probably roped a couple other people into this scam as well. If you walked into a store and took that much merchandise it's a felony. If you scam somebody out of it they won't do anything because its it happens all over the place every day. White collar crime pays serious money! I feel like if I were a little more computer savvy and had more means I could nail this guy. I really want to see him pay. I'm still mad. I've wasted hours of my finite life thinking about this guy not to mention the work I had to do to save this money that I lost. Writing about this is a means to let it go and get this injustice out of my head.
And what happened to our money? Did it go up Marc's nose, did he buy the sickest metal detector ever made, did he spend it all on chocolates for his mum? Or perhaps he chartered a private motorboat to Oak Island? I would love to know!
I am confident that this guy will be brought to task for this and if the law doesn't get him nature and life will. You can't escape your actions. I wonder what "Marc Benfield" is up to these days? Be careful out there if you are paying for something like this make sure it checks out as the real thing.
My goal is to someday go on one of the real legitimate tours that is out there. Marc? Can't wait to meet you by chance someday... in person.
As awful as this was I hope you enjoyed reading.
