MARRIAGE AGENCY FRAUDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12711, 5 August 1919, Page 7

MARRIAGE AGENCY FRAUDS.

CUNNING METHODS OF SWINDLING,

The Matrinvonal Agency business has had a big revival since the demobilisation began, and a. number of enterprising individuals are turning the boom to. account by running agencies ’on lines that are calculated to enrich them quickly at the expense of their overconfiding .clients (wjrites the English lady detective, Maud "West, in “ Pearson's "Weekly I would like, at the start of this article, to say that there are undoubtedly honestly conducted matrimonial agencies, hut there are a number that ore not. It is about the latter that I intend writing.

Here is one story of a matrimonial agency that came under my notice in tlie course of my work as an inquiry agent. MADE £BOOO IN FOUR MONTHS.

This agency had a short career-—it ’only lasted throe" or four months, but the gentleman who conducted it made nearly £BOOO out of it in tho brief period. His method of doing business was this. He particularly aimed at getting hold of respectable and rather clderly peoplo who had saved a, little money and who desired to meet someone else (with still bigger savings than their own) with a view to matrimony.

Perhaps his methods may he best explained by relating the story brought to me by one of his victims. This lady, whom I shall call Miss Blank, had been a Indies’ maid mid had saved, in the course of twenty-five years’ service, over £BOO. Slip was then forty-four years of age. She went to the agent am writing about, and she was precisely the kind of client he desired to get hold of. After several interviews with her. when ho made considerable pretence of looking up names in a big ledger and consulting several correspondence files, ho told Ins client that he had on his hooks tho name of a gentleman, who ho thought would he very glad to meet her with a view to marrying her-

“PRETEND YOU THINK HE’S POOR.”

He told her that the gentleman he had in view had quite a lot of money, certainly over _£lo,ooo, most of which had come to him through the death of a relation. He offered to introduce his client to this gentleman, hut warned her not to say anything to him about his money.

'‘He is desperately afraid of a woman wanting to marry him for his money, !> said the agent. “You must pretend that you think he is a. poorman, or at all events one with not mbro money than you have, otherwise he will have nothing to say to you.” Now to the man. to whom he introduced this client the agent said almost precisely the same thing. The man was a book-keeper, aged forty-eight, in a. win© store in the.city, who had saved £7OO. The agent loft him. under the impression that the lady ho would introduce him to had a fortune of £ 10,000, hut he was to keep tho knowledge of this a. strict secret.

With both of his clients the agent made the arrangement that each should pay him £IOO .after ‘they had been introduced to one another and had known each other for a week, and ho got his money.

He made at least £6OO si week in this way from different clients for over three months. Then trouble began to arise-

One of his clients, an irritable Portuguese who had paid him £IOO, arrived one morning at the agent’s office and producing'a. loaded revolver, demanded his money hack.

The Portuguese; bad not taken long to discover that the ady he had been introduced to had c on less money than himself. The agent refunded the money and came to the conclusion that it was time to close down his business ami disappear, which he did. L heard that. subsequently whilst conducting business on similar lines in. tho'Argentine ho was shot dead by one of Ills victims.

SENT PHOTOS TO HIS OWN WIFE.

Another matrimonial agency that came under my notice was conducted by -a German named Eisner. This gentleman’s method of doing business .was rather ingenious. Ho advertised extensively. Me took no notice of replies from ladies, hut to every man who answered'he sent a, puo to graph of his own wife or daughter. The latter was a rather good-looking girl of about twenty, and his wife was not without some charms.

With the photograph he sent a, letter written by his wife or daughter, asking the gentleman to whom, it was sent to correspond with. a. view to matrimony o.nd to send his photograph. The letters were sent from Herr Eisner’s private address in Manchester. The business meant hard' work for Herr .Eisner’s wife and daughter, for they had to write about thirty letters each day, and they had to take care not to correspond with or send their photographs to gentlemen living in the same neighbourhood who might possibly know each other and take it into their heads to compare notes about the ladies with whom they were corresponding.

Herr Eisner got a guinea from each gentleman whom he put into corxes-. polidence with his wife or daughter. la this’way he made over *£3o a week for nearly two years until war broke out, when he left the country. Once he started a correspondence between his wife and daughter and a client, he would! keep it up at the rate of one letter a week for a, mouth; then one of the ladies would write a letter to the effect that she must, greatlv l-o her

repet, cease corresponding because her affections brwi beon given to another, A matrimonial agent working on fraudulent lines always places a certain amount of reliance on' the fact that a client whom be has defrauded or cheated will not care ,to- take proceedings against him because of his client’s dislike of haring the fact-made public, that he or she had been seeking to obtain a wife or husband through an agency. T know a girl who lived in Newcastle who paid a matrimonial agent in London £25, for an introduction to a gentleman who tile agent said lived in Noti tingham, hut was at the moment in London-

“WHEN YOU MEET. PAY ME £25.” The agent suggested that the best plan would he to arrange a personal meeting between this gentleman and the girl in question in Nottingham. “ If you- both like each other after if, 0111 " Erst meeting,” wrote the agent, I shall require you to pay me £25.” i *be girl readily consented to do as [the agent sugegsted, and went to Not--1 tingham. The man -she met was the agent himeelf, who posed as the gentleman sire was to meet. After meeting her on two occasions the agent told the girl that he had to go to London on business for a. week, and that he would then go to Newcastle to see her there. Tho agent then went back to London, wrote to the girl for £23, and duly received it. She never heard from the. Nottingham gentleman again, hut she discovered! the manner in which the agent had defrauded ter, yet she would uot prosecute him. There are several well-known society ladies ’who _ act as matrimonial agents and get hig corn mission a for securing wcllrdowcred brides for penniless bridegrooms and vico versa. AGENT’S.FEB WAS £25,000At the present moment there is pending a case-Hu .which a-, society matnmonial agont is suing a.la-dy for a big sum which tlie lady agreed to pay her for bringing alxmt a marriage between her and an immensely -wealthy man, . The commission w-a® to have been paid the- day the marriage took place, but the newly-wedded lady refused to pay a penny. The society matrimonial agent nowadays conducts her business on strict business lines. Not long since, I saw a. stamped agreement between a. wellknown lady in society, who, acts a.s a matrimonial agent, and the eldest son of a peer in which the latter agreed to pay her £25,000 in the event of a certain lady marrying him—the document was duly signed and witnessed.