She’s probably the worst wedding planner anyone could refer to a friend,
since she scammed thousands from over 20 couples! But is she worse than the girl
who sold expensive vacations to exotic destinations to her friends and family?!
4 - The Wedding Scammer Dana Twidale
Jason and Nicky Asquith-Thorpe had every reason to look forward to their big day. Then,
it was almost ruined by a fake wedding planner named Dana Twidale. The couple
was taken in by her ads on social media, showing past successes in rich detail.
When they talked with her, they were promised a venue, decorations, food,
and even a ""memory ladder"" for photos of those who couldn't make it but should have.
The smorgasbord offering made the £2,800 fee seem cheap compared to what they would pay
more prominent planners. But £2,800 is WAY too much to pay for nothing.
Jason and Nicky were in trouble when they arrived at an address given to them by Twidale.
It was supposed to be the pub that would host their reception.
Instead, it was just a large empty field. They tried to contact Twidale, but she ghosted them.
The couple ended up laying down an additional £5,600 to save their wedding,
effectively canceling their planned honeymoon.
Past Scamming
The couple went on the radio to voice their woes and learned they weren't alone. All told,
24 other couples came forward with something to say about Twidale.
They had all been hooked the same way as Jason and Nicky.
A reputable wedding company later came forward and said that Twidale owed many of her early
successes to outsourcing, an accusation that made all too much sense in context.
Twidale fled to nearby Benidorm as too many people caught on to her scam. This finding was mostly due
to her constant posting on social media, including photos of herself soaking up the sun. When
authorities made a possible match, they needed some help to be sure they had the right woman.
That help came from Twindale's estranged husband, Carl. He loaned Dana around £4,000
and never saw a dime of it back, and he was neither the first nor the last. When he came
out publicly and asked her to sign divorce forms and move on, he got more than he bargained for.
Twidale's angry clients came out of the woodwork, with some even threatening him,
despite him having no idea about her scamming during their separation.
Authorities contacted him, and he identified Dana to help haul her in.
Nightmare Wedding
When Twidale was initially arrested in July of 2021,
her case amounted to roughly £15,000 that she was found to have bilked from would-be clients.
It didn't take long for Twidale to plead guilty, and the judge handed down a five-year sentence.
Authorities made a couple of nasty discoveries when trying to arrange reparations for victims.
Twidale exceeded the previously reached figure, wringing around
£60,000 from victims between 2017 and 2019, and she had already spent the vast majority of it.
With about £600 in a frozen bank account and no home or car to levy and sell,
the impossible task of repaying her victims began.
3 - The Fake Kidnapping Frantic Call
In 2020, a woman and her husband in Mexico got busted faking the woman's kidnapping to
wring ransom money out of her mother. In the middle of the night on May 4th,
2020, Martha Elizabeth and Juan Samuel placed a frantic call to her mother, Elizabeth Eduviges.
They told her that her daughter had wound up in the hands of kidnappers in the town of Pesqueira.
The initial call included a quoted ransom amounting to roughly $899,
to be paid as 25,000 Mexican pesos. That call went a bit off the rails compared to
how movies may portray ransom calls. By the end, Eduviges reported that she couldn’t hear
her daughter's kidnappers but she heard her son-in-law in the background instead.
According to Eduviges, her daughter and son-in-law were the only ones she heard on the call.
Samuel claimed that the kidnappers were hurting Elizabeth. More than a little freaked out,
Eduviges scraped together about $449 and threw it into the account she was given. This was
about 10,000 pesos, less than half of what she was initially asked to pay. Any parent wanting
to keep their child safe would obviously spare no expense. This cash was all she had on hand.
Aftermath
Not paying the ransom in full came with predictable results. Samuel called back
and upped the ante, saying that the kidnappers were now looking for about $1,120. This sum was
absolutely out of her reach, so her next move was equally predictable. Four days later, she went to
the cops. In practically no time, Sonora state authorities tracked the "kidnapped" couple to
a hotel room in Hermosillo. The pair confessed and ended up jailed for aggravated extortion.
2 - The Vacation Planner Jessica Greatorex-Thomas
Scammer Jessica Greatorex-Thomas posed as a travel agent and scammed several people
in her own inner circle. But she ended up with nothing but a lengthy suspended
sentence to show for her troubles. Her scam hit four different victims,
promising them trips to destinations like Venice, the Maldives, and Disney World. All told,
she raked in around £70,000 thousand pounds, which she ended up paying back.
Thomas is a military wife and mother, married to active duty serviceman James Thomas,
a detail that played a big part in how her scam story ended. Hailing from Saffron Walden in Essex,
she lived on a military base with her husband and kids while running her scam.
After it all went down, her husband ended up deployed to Germany,
leaving Thomas and the kids safely in the UK as of this writing.
She put her crooked plans into action in 2016,
saying she worked for a travel company and got an incredible deal on a vacation package
for her family. The travel company changed over time, with Emirates and Virgin Atlantic being
the two most prominent and well-used. She bragged to whoever would listen,
and when neighbor Katie Taylor-Reilly paid attention, the scam finally began.
Biggest “Client”
Thomas's interactions with Reilly were always friendly, so the fellow army
wife had no reason to be suspicious when Thomas offered to act as the middleman
for Reilly's holiday plans. Instead of paying the travel company, Reilly gave Thomas the
money. Over time, this amounted to £48,000, making her Thomas's most prominent victim.
Reilly's mother recently had a near-miss with cancer, awakening Reilly to her own mortality.
She was more than willing to splash on experiences and lasting memories, making her the perfect prey.
The first trip on the list was to Venice. But when the time came, Thomas lied about trouble at work.
Reilly ended up hand-waving the whole incident and rebooking for next year on Thomas's
recommendation. To add insult to injury, she was even convinced at this point to throw her aunt
and uncle into the mix, booking them imaginary tickets to Venice with the rest of her family.
All seemed fine, but the next trip brought it all crashing down. Reilly and her kids
were excited to go to Disney World for a chance to ride Space Mountain and hug a giant mouse.
However, Thomas had terrible news for them; she had lost her job,
canceling many of the holidays booked with her employee discount.
The news crushed Reilly and her family, but Thomas promised a refund was on its way.
Thomas also lied about a dying aunt she had to take care of.
After the Disney debacle, Reilly wanted to speak
with Thomas's superiors. But when the scammer told her that couldn't happen,
Reilly called Emirates herself. There were never any trips... Thomas never even worked there.
Aftermath
The jig was officially up. Thomas was caught, and Chelmsford Crown Court hosted a quick trial in May
2020. While she had committed three other frauds, her go at Reilly was the most significant and the
only one that the courts could definitely prove. As such, the £48,000 affair got the spotlight.
After obtaining a confession, Judge Jonathan Seely sentenced Thomas to concurrent terms
totaling 20 months in jail and 120 hours of unpaid labor at the court. By then,
she'd already begun paying back her victims. The court just made sure she kept it up.
Seely showed special mercy in this case. He ordered Thomas's sentence to be suspended,
meaning it could be served at home. According to the judge, the only reason for this was her
husband's deployment in Germany. How could he care for the kids if Thomas was in jail? The suspended
sentence allowed the fraudster to stay home with her children during her husband's tour of duty.
1 - The Scamming Son Unsuspecting
An anonymous man out of Melbourne, Australia, was accused of stealing from his sick mother!
She was too ill to manage her own money, so he decided to just take it from her. This worst
son of Melbourne scammed his own mom from 2014 to 2018, ultimately stealing north of $1.1 million.
He emptied her bank accounts and charged $150,000 on her debit card.
Sadly, this bold breach of trust is pretty standard across the globe. What makes this
one unique, however, is that most cases are perpetrated by people with some legitimate
claim to power over the finances they're ravaging. Power of attorney for a dying
or ailing relative is among the most common scenarios, but no such thing happened here.
Instead, the scammy son helped himself to his mother's millions.
Public Trustee Like others in other regions,
Queensland's Public Trustee is tasked with watching over financial dealings
and reporting anything suspicious to local police.
In January of 2021, the game was on. The investigation followed the usual course and
reached its conclusion in June of 2022. Police moved in at dawn and raided the son's home.
They found enough incriminating documents to arrest the worst son in Melbourne.
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Let us know in the comment section if you think scammers
are scammers for life or can they reform themselves over time?