Filipina and American Husband Allegedly Victimize Fellow Churchgoers in Scam
It can get lonely when you’re living abroad. Which is why we tend to group ourselves with our countrymen. For Len W., who moved to South Carolina to be with her husband Thomas Mark, that meant being with other Filipino expats in South Carolina. Together, Mark and Len joined the local Filipino Baptist community, who accepted them as one of their own. Little did they know, the couple would scam them into thousands of dollars in an elaborate flight scam. This story was shared by Reverend Fernando R., who posted it on his blog.
According to him:
This couple had moved from Orlando, Florida about two years ago. Mark had found a job with a local company, so he claimed. He told us he had been a licensed professional roofer for over 35 years. Len is (or was) a travel agent.
It didn’t take them long to make friends with the many Filipinos in the tri-county area (Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester) in our state of South Carolina. Len invited the entire community when she threw a huge party on her 50th birthday sometime last year. I wasn’t able to attend. Then she and her husband started (or continued) to engage in a financial scam, victimizing dozens of Filipino families and their international friends.
The story began when Len offered discounts to flight tickets to the Philippines. The discount was so big that friends started booking their trips. Some time in June last year, she went to the Philippines and stayed there for two months. Her husband, Mark, stayed in the US. That’s when trouble began.
The day after Len flew home, my phone started ringing off the hook. Everybody in town was looking for her, mad as they could be. Why did they call me? Well, Mark and Len joined our church shortly before last Christmas. One after another were crying foul, forgery, scam, fraud, etc. To get them off my back, I was forced to call for an urgent town hall meeting one Sunday afternoon. I’d asked victims to bring me any documentations they had to prove the couple’s scam operation. I was shaken beyond belief! I couldn’t believe my ears and my eyes!
The reverend said that Len was swindling her victims with thousands of dollars. In one case, a family asked her to book a flight. According to them, she booked the flight right in front of them. The family paid using their credit card and when they left, Len cancelled the reservation and took all the money. The family only found out during their flight date that their flight had been cancelled. In another case, she gave one-way tickets to a couple, with the promise they would get return tickets before the due date. This never happened. Another family gave her a few thousand dollars for a future flight. When they tried to refund it, Len claimed she did not have the money.
And worse, the church and the reverend were also victims. According to Rev. Fernando:
My church is also a victim, and so are a few more churches in the area. One weekday we had a downpour in Goose Creek. The ceiling in the chapel started leaking. That Sunday I explained the situation to the congregation. Mark and Len happened to be in attendance that day. He proposed to fix the problem for $5,000. We raised the amount in a few days. Len took the money. Mark started to do some work on the roof, but he stopped so soon when Len flew home. What he has done was simply apply some primer on a fraction of the roof.
I’m also a victim. She promised to sell me plane tickets for less than a thousand dollars each (for me and my wife). That was a steal! Well, it turned out, it was, literally! I gave her two separate checks for $250 dollars each. I never got the tickets! One early morning she called me and wanted to borrow $3000 for 20 plane seats she had purchased from an airline. She claimed that together we would make a killing on the sale of those tickets. I declined. She was mad. I found out after the fact that she had approached just about everybody about the same bogus deal!
When Len flew home in June, her victims headed straight for the police departments and filed claims of criminal conduct against Len and Mark. Some even went to the sheriff’s offices and district attorneys. Three counties had already issued warrants for her arrest. And by August, both Mark and Len allegedly disappeared. There are also rumors that the couple are now in Alabama or Chicago. According to Rev. Fernando:
So I need your help. If you happen to see this couple or hear rumors about their whereabouts, please call your local police. Their names and their crimes are already posted on a national database. Similar to America’s Most Wanted. We’ve checked the FBI website and found out that Len had two outstanding arrest warrants in other states. Apparently, they’d pulled off the same scam operation elsewhere! Watch out folks, you might be their next victims!
The reverend allegedly received an update from someone from Indiana. According to Rev. Fernando:
The Wallens had also victimized him and a few Filipino families who lived there. This was 7 or 8 years ago. He also emailed me some documentations of Len’s illegal booking of flights to the Philippines.
What do you think? Share your thoughts below!
Filipina and American Husband Allegedly Victimize Fellow Churchgoers in Scam
