Mike Newton’s Tape Trading SCAM !!!
Dear Martial brothers, let me tell you about one of the lowest martial arts scams you could imagine.
It started one day a few months ago when on an impulse I put up a posting asking if anyone knew of any footage of my schools lion dance or demonstrations from between 10 and 35 years ago. My Sifu and school had done many lion dances etc, so I assumed that someone out there may have some footage. My Sifu, passed away ten years ago.
I received an e-mail a day or so later by a Mr. Steven Tyler. He claimed to have footage of our school in numerous performances from San Francisco. Upon hearing this I was overjoyed, I truly wanted to find some footage of my long dead Sifu, who raised me as a god son. He said that he would be happy to send me the footage at no cost to me since he knew how sentimental it was to me. He claimed to have lived in San Francisco during the 70’s and 80’s and also seemed to know something about my Sifu. Being overjoyed I offered to give him some tapes from my collection. He said that that would be great, and he would send me my tapes soon.
Then he claimed to know a well known Mantis Sifu who I wont mention his name. He said this Mantis Sifu had old 8mm footage of my Sifu training in a Chinese Association in Chinatown. What a coincidence, my Sifu was learning from one of his Northern Shaolin Sifu’s in such an association in the 60’s, the same time period Steven Tyler mentioned. He also mentioned a sparring match which was filmed with my Sifu and another guy. The description of the bout sounded exactly like the kind of technique and ruthlessness of my Sifu. It sounded most convincing. This con guy is good.
Using the name of this well known Mantis Sifu, this guy Steven Tyler said that the Mantis Sifu would trade for the footage I wanted, he said the Mantis Sifu was eccentric and wanted some other kung fu tapes. I thought it was bizarre and a little unbelievable, but his story of the footage just seemed so convincing. So, taking a chance I sent some more tapes for Steven to hand to the Mantis Sifu for supposed exchange.
As you can imagine no tapes ever arrived at my office. He kept delaying me with pitiful excuses, then tried to get me excited with stories of tapes of my Grandmaster, my Great-Grandmaster and tapes of Ku Yu Cheung nonetheless. Now I knew I had been had. I was a sucker, yes I admit it. But this sucker never forgets.
Its not very NICE to cheat people using sentiments of their lost master. Not nice at all.
Anyway back to the story. I figure I would try to find out who this traitor (Fan Gwut Jai) is. I called many schools in the Bronx and New York to see if a Steven Tyler was enrolled, no luck. It seems the only Steven Tyler I could find was in the rock band (Aerosmith ?).
Next. I noticed a web page being posted advertising a kung fu tape trading site here on Kungfuonline.com. It seemed too unusual. I checked it out and saw it was run by a Mike Newton. Different name, same tapes. I waited to see if anyone complained about any cheating before I moved. Yesterday I went to the Martial Media and Popular Culture section and found many complaints on this trading site:
http://forum.kungfumagazine.com/foru...threadid=12817
If I had seen these postings I would have acted sooner, as I usually hang out in the Shaolin Forum.
Anyway, for your information the person who is cheating us not a Steven Tyler nor is it a Mike Newton. It is someone else. I checked Mike Newtons (now disappeared) web site and dug around. I found on its side pages a number of resumes posted for a:
Mr. Luis Ginorio ...... of Puerto Rico
Could this perhaps be our man. Well I would not leave it to such simple circumstantial evidence alone, I went further. I called around New York and it was verified that Mr. Luis Ginorio was in fact a Preying Mantis practitioner. I checked address databases and found the address of Luis Ginorio matched the exact mailing address I had sent the tapes.
So we have matching mailing addresses for Luis Ginorio and Steven Tyler at 755 XXXXX St, Bronx New York. He is a Mantis player of ill repute and also sells/sold tapes on ebay under the handle “micromantis”, here is his “previously sold items” page on e-bay:
http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAP...sort=3&rows=25
(If you cannot open it properly, then go to search function on ebay, then type in micromantis and include completed auctions. )
He had sold some new Wing Lam tapes I sent him.
Anyway I would like to bring this traitor to full light. He cheats many honest martial artists, he cheats them using the love of a long dead Sifu, he hides behind fake names (Steven Tyler/Bane/Mike Newton) and he abuses the names or reputable masters and includes them in his scam, thus redirecting our hatred to them instead.
This is not the action of a martial artist, it is the action of a cacaracha ... a roach.
My eye is on you Luis Ginorio, as someone on the complaint post said…..you can run but you can’t hide.
A small world is it not Luis ?
I welcome you to San Francisco to see what you have entered into.
Cheers
Buddhapalm
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