Derek Neary
Northern News Services

Fort Simpson (Sep 14/01) - Nine unsuspecting people from Alberta and British Columbia learned not to be so trusting after being scammed by a con artist with an extensive past.

The nine arrived in Simpson Sept. 3 expecting to start gas field jobs, only to realize they had been duped.

Nona Kornylo and Maureen Seymour, who were supposed to work as camp cleaners, and Howard Gauthier, a contractor from Moberly Lake, B.C., said a man in Grande Prairie, Alta., whom they met through different means, made the same promises of good wages and bonuses. However, they allege he also asked them to pay for some of their travel up front, assuring them they would be reimbursed later. The reimbursement never came.

"As far as we knew the bus was supposed to come here, we get a ($625) cash advance and go to camp," a distressed Seymour said from a Fort Simpson hotel room. "There's no such camp. It doesn't even exist," Kornylo said.

The fraudulent man reportedly asked them for their credit card numbers and banking information, telling them he had money to deposit.

"We should have known that the company pays for everything," said Gauthier, who generously paid for everyone's hotel rooms and meals during their unexpected two-day stay in Fort Simpson.

Gauthier alleged that the man, identified as being in his early 40s, also wanted to have Gauthier's company transferred under his own.

"I said, 'We have to put this on paper,'" Gauthier said. "But 'We'll do it later,' he kept saying to me.'"

The City of Grande Prairie, the chamber of commerce and the Better Business Bureau had never heard of the man in question. The police have a file on the man; however, the investigating officer was unable for comment by presstime.

The Drum has confirmed that the man fled without paying for the charter that flew the nine people to Fort Simpson from Grande Prairie.

Nor did the man pay his $3,000 bill at the Grande Prairie hotel where he put up several would-be workers for as long as two weeks.

"He's a con-artist all right ... I have seen lots of smoothies, but I've never seen one like this," said Hazel Brown, manager of the Canadian Motor Inn. She said that he allegedly swindled a young woman out of $1,000 after claiming his truck had been stolen.

"Just a poor, young, single girl. She even lost her job over it ... it's really a sad case," Brown said.

In addition, she said he tried to pass two bad cheques that weren't from his account. Apparently, the man was claiming to be affiliated with Veritas, a geophysical company based in Calgary. Steve DeWolfe, operations supervisor for Veritas, said this same man allegedly made off with more than $30,000 for a job Veritas pre-paid him to do in Fort Liard earlier this summer.

"They haven't found hide nor hair of him since," DeWolfe said, adding that people offered work should check with the company's human resources department first.

Kornylo said the supposed $230 per day job at a 160-man camp sounded too good to be true, but never having worked in the NWT before, she thought it was possible.

"I'm an honest person, so I think he's honest too," she explained. "He's a big liar ... the man is a crook."

Seymour and her husband Jay jumped at the offer, hoping they could get off welfare.

"I was so excited when he called and asked if I wanted to go to work," she recalled, adding that the man had offered to pay three months of her rent. "I'll never trust like that again."