Chris Davis The Bridge Foundation

Amy –

Victim Location 46208

Total money lost $20,000

Type of a scam Charity

Chris Davis came to our school through a trusted and also tricked person. He claimed to be the president of The Bridge Leadership Foundation. He claimed that the foundation provided mentoring and service project opportunities to Middle School and High School students in the Indianapolis area. He claimed that his projects were funded by former colleagues from his days as a football. He suggested that our school and a school he was affiliated with in Germany become pen pals. We knew that Chris ‘s father lived in Germany and he had many connections there. We connected with a great teacher there and started to set up the pen pal program. We were eager for our students to make this connection. It soon became a large project where our students would go to Germany and stay with their Pen Pal families, touring Germany, for 10 days. Chris stated repeatedly that if the kids raised as much as they could his donors would cover all the cost of the trip for the students and chaperones.

The German teacher and worked for months on the trip and our students worked on their fundraising. Our school is a small school. Our free and reduced lunch rate is 70%. Parents in our school do not have expendable income available to them. THe kids di an amazing job and raised approximately $9000.00 through bake sales, bulbs and seed sales, and dinner nights. They were so excited.

Chris Davis had fundraisers for the trip. He had a very pricy evening with a famous football player from the Bulls, there was a GO FUnd ME account set up by him.

Three weeks before departure an itinerary came to me from a German travel agency. It indicated that half of the tickets had been purchased and the flights had been arranged. Chris said he was waiting on a donor to complete the ticket purchases. As the time came closer to leaving the tickets and the placement of students across the flights had to be rearranged often. There were troubles paying for hotel rooms through Pay Pal and the payment of a bus and tour company. All these seemed to be figured out. The students’ fundraising paid for the tour company.

The day came to fly, students were packed and ready to board but the tickets had not come through. Chris said because of the time difference from Germany the tickets had not been finalized and he would look into it. He then said that the ticket price had gone up since we first reserved them and each ticket would be 200E more than originally thought. he had a donor sending money on Monday morning. He asked if the school could front that money until the donor check was cleared. The school could not. I am the Head of School and my students were packed and waiting. I said that I would front this money personally. I was called by the ticket agent and she asked if I would approve a $998.00 charge. I approved. The tickets were issued and the first group left the ground. The second group started to board and six tickets were not issued. I realized there was something fishy afoot. When I looked at my Credit Card account all the tickets and their full price had been charged to my account. The last 6 tickets would have way exceeded my limit so were denied. One family had their twin students divided and their grandparents divided that were chaperones. The grandparent paid for the six remaining tickets. Chris Davis has left with the first group and seemed to be arguing with the airlines and trying to figure out the problem. He repeated the idea that money would arrive on Monday. I was pretty sure I had been had but my student’s safety was my first concern. They arrived in Germany. Their pen pal families were great. Those in the hotel had reservations. A great time was had by all but no money ever showed up. I was personally out $20,000.00.

Chris still said the money would show. When the time came to leave the hotel the police came to arrest Chris because he had not paid the bill. Eventually, the grandparent that had paid the extra ticket price charged this bill also in order to let the students return home. He lost $14,000. to this trip. Chris Davis never paid a cent to this trip and needless to say no donor ever appeared. I owe $500 a month for years to apy off this bill. THe grandparent in the group is equally damaged.

Chris Davis then repeated this fiasco scam with another school group the next year. They were stranded in China and another teacher was on the line for a similar amount.

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