Turimel M
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Posts: 1
(9/16/05 11:18 pm)
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Tale of two con artists--who fleeced fans AND cast of LOTR
Hi, Boardies. This seems like an OK forum thread for shameless self promotion, so here goes:
I'd like to invite you guys to have a peek at my website, www.turondo.com
I'm a long time LOTR fan, fell in love with Frodo about 24 years ago, majorly renewed that feeling after seeing His Hotness, Elijah Wood, play the role in the films, probably the same story as everyone here.
This part, however, will be totally different. In 2003, I joined what I thought was a brand-new nonprofit group that was also a fan club for Sam Gamgee and Sean Astin. This group was called Bit of Earth, and they wanted to build gardens for communities as a charitable gesture. Their first one was being built a 45-minute drive from my house, and their guest of honor was none other than Sean Astin himself. Is that cool or what?
Unfortunately, the two girls in charge of Bit of Earth were a couple of con artists, and the whole thing was an enormous scam. All they wanted to do was meet the cast of LOTR, on their own little sick and twisted terms--they didn't want to pay money for a 2-minute visit at a convention, like normal people do. No, Preciousss, they wanted to have the stars all to themselves with lots of quality time.
What better way than to create a fake charity and throw "fundraisers" that were tailored 100% to each actor's interests and other charity work, then ask that actor to host the event? That was how they pulled Sean into their little scheme--and once Sean was on board, no one doubted that Bit of Earth was 100% legitimate.
Well. That got turned around at the end of 2003, when a few of us unraveled an Elaborate lie (designed to fleece me personally out of $70,000)--but not in time to keep three Kiwi actors from getting stranded in LA and having to spend the night on the floor of the con's apartment!
Of course, that was only the first of many, many lies that fell apart over the next few months. The story became so convoluted, and involved so many well-meaning fans and celebrities alike, that I finally wrote it into a book.
Which is for sale at www.turondo.com for $14.95. I interviewed John Howe (who is amazingly funny), Bruce Hopkins, "Tall Paul" Randall, Kiran Shah, Jed Brophy, the manager of "Figwit" and his band, The Black Seeds, and David Salo (the Elven language consultant for the movies, who is even funnier than John Howe). All of these people were either conned or almost conned by Bit of Earth. Billeh had a very close call, and Dom actually got BLAMED by these girls for some of their misdeeds (they tried to frame him in their defense statement to the Attorney General!).
Here's the cool part: Sean Astin is, as you probably know, a huge supporter of volunteering and community service. He's come to understand how these girls roped him in and then used him to attract new members and get "donations" and so forth. He has autographed 100 copies of my book, to help me get it moving out there among the fans--because he thinks it's a story that needs to be told, as a cautionary tale to help other good-hearted people avoid rotten crooks.
So, if you'd like to read an absolutely jaw-dropping true story involving fans and cast of the films, and particularly if you'd like to get a signed, numbered book autographed by Sean (and it's a nice autograph; he drew a peace sign and smiley face in each book), well, consider yourself heads-upped!
Thanks!
~Turi
www.turondo.com
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