Victim Location 46032
Total money lost $55,000
Type of a scam Travel/Vacations
In 2017 Chris Davis, CEO of a non-profit called “The Bridge Leadership Foundation” organized a trip to take a group of middle-school children and parent chaperones to China. It was billed as an experience of a lifetime for the children, as they would visit a prominent school in China and meet with children their age at the school, as well as visit famous tourist sites in China.
For funding, Chris Davis asked all of the attendees (there were about 20 in total attended the trip), to pay $1,000 per attendee (both parent and child – $1,000 each) to cover passports, Visas, lodging, food and tourism expenses. Chris Davis stated he had received money from sponsors to fund the airfare to China for all attendees.
Literally the night before the group was scheduled to leave, Chris Davis informed the group there was a problem with the sponsors funding and the trip would be delayed. Chris Davis worked out an arrangement with the school in China whereby the school would purchase the airfare, and Chris Davis would transmit the funds to the school. It would later be revealed that Chris Davis was stealing/misappropriating the funds for the trip, and that Chris Davis had several thousand dollars of unpaid expenses for other aspects of the trip. When the group returned to the United States, they then learned that Chris Davis had completed a nearly identical scam with an entirely different group in 2017 who attended a trip in Germany.
After the group realized what Chris Davis had done, they filed a police report, and some who attended the trip shared the story with the news (see links to the news segments below):
• <span title="https://fox59.com/2018/07/06/teacher-says-money-for-a-student-trip-was-mishandled-and-now-shes-on-the-hook-for-thousands/
https://fox59.com/2018/07/06/teacher-says-money-for-a-student-trip-was-mishandle…⇄ />
• <span title="https://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/indianapolis/-do-not-work-with-this-person-indy-students-nearly-stranded-in-china-and-it-s-not-the-first-time
https://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/indianapolis/-do-not-work-with-th…⇄ />
A few months after returning to the United States, several attendees from the China trip were notified by the Chinese consulate that the credit card Chris Davis used to purchase the Visas for the group (which funds contributed by the attendees for the express purpose of buying Visas) had the transaction reversed due to being reported as fraudulent; and the consulate was seeking payment from the attendees for the Visas.
In summary, Chris Davis defrauded over $20,000 collected from the attendees for the trip (very little of which was used by Chris Davis towards expenses on the trip), left the school in China and the key sponsor there with a debt of over $33,000; and in addition, caused the attendees on the trip to spend h hundreds of dollars more once in China due Chris Davis’ theft.