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There are a few travel agents, especially those well versed in assisting faith-based mission groups, who would defraud these groups. They not only risk both a long visit to the hoosegow, they virtually guarantee their future trip to hell for preying on these unsuspecting groups heading to do the good works of mission trips.
The Department of Justice recently advised that a grand jury returned an indictment against Elisabeth Greenhill and her brother, Jonathan Greenhill both of “Mission Trip Airfare” (MTAF) for Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud.
Who is MTAF?
This is there website landing page (click to enlarge) - it is, amazingly, still up and active.
MTAF has been in business since 2002, “providing low fares exclusively for faith-based and humanitarian organizations.” They left off the part about also committing fraud and stealing numerous organization’s funds.
The indictment notes, the two engaged in “a scheme to defraud other travel agencies and faith-based and humanitarian groups seeking travel on mission and humanitarian trips overseas.” Specifically, the duo are accused of having stolen the funds which these groups sent to MTAF funds and failed to provide the tickets to the various groups.
Here’s how it worked. MTAF would take the deposit from the group making the trip. The duo are alleged to then siphon off a portion of the deposit and use the remainder with other travel wholesale agencies to purchase the group ticket. New reservation money was used to pay off balances owed until the ponzi scheme became unwieldy and groups began to not receive their tickets.
Examples from the indictment -
- 30 March 2017 - New York based church - $38,455
- 29 June 2017 - Michigan faith-based ministry - $9,989
- 12 July 2017 - Texas faith-based ministry - $4,050
- 24 August 2017 - Virginia-based church - $8,386
- 22 November 2017 - Ohio-based church - $5,511
We dug in a little deeper and took at peek over at the Better Business Bureau to determine their current rating. You guessed it, a big fat “F” will be found. Example after example is provided of travel agency fraud by MTAF. One example indicates how one group sent $12,186 to MTAF and never received tickets or refunds. How was the money sent to MTAF? A wire transfer for the purchase of 20 seats on American Airlines.
And they did not just prey on mission trips, they also preyed on other travel agencies … watch the story below and hear of the experience of McAbee Travel, who focused on helping other travel agencies helping humanitarian groups is out $125,000. One faith-based group, One Plus God who organizes short-term mission trips and assists in fundraising for missionaries lost $100,000. The FBI believes MTAF has stolen more than $500,000, while FOX NEWs below indicates that MTAF theft of funds may be as large as $1,000,000.
U.S. Attorney, Byung J. “BJay” Pak advises all groups,
