In May Youcef Aden contacted our company explaining he was doing a review on the DSLR camera for the ICB show in Amsterdam for the 2010 show which included the used of the camera in the production in a new Star Wars Series, and that is was for IT technology for ABC, adobe, Canon, Apple, Tiffen Steadicam, Manfrotto and Microsoft.
He does business under the name WPA or World Press Agency and has a website http://worldpressagency.co.uk.
His story was quite convincing so we sent a $1, 000 USD teleprompter to England for the Review.
Over the course of several month we contacted Youcef Aden by email to find out the status of the review. He kept responding the same thing. "The review is not complete yet", although the ICB2010 conference had come and gone.
Finally ofter contacting him by phone and insisting that we see the review, he produced an unsigned one page document that had the IBC logos on the top and bottom. It was not signed, there was no author name, and there was no reference to Youcef Aden or the WPA.
In addition he did not do the article on the product that we sent him, nor did the article contain anthing about the the DSLR camera or the Star Wars Series that he claimed he was doing the review for.
In addition, Youcef Aden would not supply the publication source of the article, where it was published, or distributed.
This all seem too suspicious so we did some investingating. The first thing we did was show the article to the ICB to see if they were aware of it and if they worked with the WPA, Youcef Aden, or if he was even ever issued a press pass for the event.
As suspected the answer was not. They never gave them permission to publish an article using their logos, nor had they ever heard of Youcef Aden.
We then contacted Adobe, Apple, ABC, and Manfrotto and again, as suspected, they had never heard of Youcef Aden, the WPA, nor were they aware of an article being producted about the DSLR Camcorder being used for the production of a Star Wars Series.
It is clear now to us that Youcef Aden created this elaborate scam to trick us into sending him a teleprompter for his own use, and that the article and his intention to do an article never existed.
We have notified the London Police Fraud Department, and are seeking legal council in London to address this matter and to see the Youcef Aden be held accountable for his actions.
Be advised, do not send any item to the WPA or Youcef Aden to be review, this individual is a con artist and is only out to rip you off.
If you have been scammed by the WPA or Youcef Aden please contact us and join our fight to see that he land behind bars.
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