A Nasty Equipment Scam

by Tripp Mikich

Tripp Mikich works for a company called CopyPro,
manufacturers and dealers of CD duplicating equipment.

This is an urgent request to help us:
a. Get the word out on a scam being run out of New York to rip off audioequipment from dealers and manufacturers, and others;
b. Locate other folks that have been taken in (as we were) by the same scamor may have had contact with these scam artists.

We were contacted a few weeks ago by an "Ed Vanderman" out of Binghamton,New York, claiming to be working on a new magazine called "Studio Design",published by an "Owen Herschkowitz" supposedly formerly of the New Yorker andStereo Review (no such person has ever been heard of at eitherpublication). This "Vanderman" character said that they were putting outtheir first issue, and wanted to feature our product along with others in areview, but were on deadline for their first issue and needed it "rightaway".

As we're used to such requests, we asked for references and proceeded toprepare a machine for them.

In checking out their so-called references, we soon became suspiciousbecause none of their references had any phone listings and because wecouldn't confirm or talk to anyone who seemed to be aware of any suchpublication or persons.

I called some folks at Mix magazine whom I know, and asked if they'd everheard of these people, and they said no, but that it sounded like a familiarstory, and lo and behold, I was faxed a stack of information from Mixregarding an investigation they had done last year, including faxes fromanother company out of Wisconsin that had been burned last year by theidentical scam out of Binghamton, NY! Some of the faxes they hadreceived in 1996 were identical in wording to the faxes we'd received, buthad different names for the so-called publications, like "Sound Dimension","Sound Advisor", etc.

In addition, Mix had done some of their own investigation and found outthat this same operation, done around the holidays to allow for a "cleangetaway", had been run in 1995 and 1996 with a number of other companiesaround the country, both big and small. We suspect that there are a number of other companies and individualsaffected by this scam as well.

This is a very sophisticated operation, using false business fronts,forwarded cellular phones, faxes, multiple sub-leases, phone forwardingfrom different locations around the country, etc., to cover their actuallocations and operation, and basically, once they've got the equipment inhand, use the holidays to literally disappear without a trace. By the timethe police acted in 1996, the creeps were long gone and all that stood atthe supposed address where equipment had been delivered was an emptybuilding.

We were fortunate enough to get onto this before the creeps disappeared,but these guys are slick enough to even have the cops fooled, and we arevery urgently trying to locate (and warn people) who may have been contactedby this fake magazine operation.

If anyone can help us get the word out right away,or may have heard of this before, or know places we should be posting orsending this information, please let me know ASAP. We think we can catchthese guys, but each passing minute the trail gets colder.

People can also call our 1-800-887-9906 number and ask for me if they have information or questions.Email is trippdm@f8.com.

Thanks!