A group of students showed up at the Daytona Beach airport in Florida to confront the travel agent who scammed them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a trip to Europe. They shouted “scumbag” as the came down the escalator at arrivals.
- A group of 104 high school students signed up with Stone & Compass Travel for a nine-day trip to Italy and Greece for summer 2024. Each family paid at least $3,550 for airfare, lodging, and activities.
- The travel agency head pitched the trip as something they were doing to ‘give back’ and was discounted the package by $1,000 and not making money off it.
- Last May, the agency emailed the group that it was going out of business and that there was no money for refunds. They reportedly left other groups high and dry as well.
- Some families got money back via their credit card copanies, but at least $181,800 was still owed to 43 people as of late summer.
- An arrest warrant was issued in September citing two counts of grant theft and two counts of organized scheme to defraud, with bond set at $4 million.
The agent was arrested in California and extradicted. Law enforcement claims he’d fled there once he knew that authorities were looking for him. Families met the man on arrival in Florida.
On Thursday, he arrived at Daytona Beach airport under police escort. Students and parents gathered, yelled at him as he came down the escalator, and the local sheriff confronted him in front of the group. They called the moment cathartic (but not as much as recovering the $181,800 would have been).
Investigators say that he confessed to fraud. In earlier interviews he’d claimed to be the victim of an investment fraud that cost him $900,000, forcing last-minute cancellations of the trips, and that he’d refunded what he could.
