We became aquainted at a commerce forum for esperantists. At the end of the last year I sent him some free samples (4 phones, a handwatch, a pair of shoes) according to his request, and at the beginnig of April I started sending articles to his family-members as requested, mainly to Congo and Angola. Those articles costed $5774. Some time later after he had received them I called out for payment, but each time he had various excuses and promised that he would pay me back soon. A few days later I myself proposed $774 discount off to this sum, hoping, that he would pay the rest immediatelly. In June kaj Jully, while I was constantly asking him to pay the previous sum of money, he even asked me several times to send more of computer staff up to $2000, naively asking me without any honor whether he was to pay for these. I refused to do so because I didn't want to and I was not able to. I realized that he had been treating me as a source of free articles, and already he naturally got used to receive goods with no pay-back as a begger with no honor. Once I demanded that he pay a small part to make things easer, but with no result! So time passed on never-ending requests and discussions, and in the middle of July when asked he stated that he would pay $2000 in that month, before that day I had fixed agreement with him several times, having confessed that I sank in very difficult financial situation and that I had problems to earn my living, so the money were urgently needed. On July the 31st with intense unease I made a phone call to him and told him that it was the last day, but he answered that he would pay me back in two days and that "money is important, not the month", and since the month ended on sunday, he would have something more important to do on August the 1st. (In China we say that a word once spoken can not be drawn back even by four horses). Those promissed days of payment passed away and he started being unavailable neither by phone nor by e-mail, he only left these words: Hello, I don't have the whole sum, wait, wait, wait. Please wait!!! Let us not dispute, please! I do not have any more strength to dispute as well, neither by phone nor by e-mail, wait just a while, I should send the money, only DO NOT TELL ME THAT I DON'T WANT TO PAY! He said that he was a Christian, but I think, that a real Christian doesn't behave that way!On August 4th, after he had left those words, I warned him that I will bring out this case to esperantist forums through out the world if the matters were to be going that way! There was no replay for this. However, even now I want to solve it peacefully!

P.S 1: From August the 4th up to today there has been no improvement - all my messages and phone calls wereleft without any replay on his part. Now I don't demand that he pay me immediately, I just want to organize a payment plan with time details and sums of money. But he doesn't seem to listen and stubbornly keeps silent.
P.S 2: Due to pressure through the websites I managed to contact him by phone and the next day, on August the 14th, he paid $400.
P.S 3: On September the 16th we came to an agreement, that the sum of $4600 will be reduced by $600 down to $4000. He was to pay 50% in September and the rest in part payment of $500 a month. On September the 26th, 4 days before the end of the month I reminded him of that by phone and by e-mail. He turned out to be a complete fraud and said that it was not possible to collect $2000 in four short days (was it the day I asked him to pay?) and whether he was to kill his own son, to tear him to pieces and to sell them just to collect money to pay me back? He would pay only when he would have money (God knows when it is going to happen). I proposed that if I would discount more then when he would pay and how much. He answered that even with discount he was not able to pay.
P.S 4: On the next day after that offer, again I reduced the sum by $1600 from $4600 to $3000, and he was to pay $1000 in September and $2000 before October the 15th. I invited him by phone to meet me on-line, he promised he would be there in an hour. In the end I was fooled again by his silent absence. On the next day (28.09) I managed to catch him on the phone and I repeated my offer to him, he refused. Only now I am beginning to understand that I have fallen into his trap, he has never wanted to pay anything and spend all of my money on eating. Up till now I have not made this matter public, because I had a kind of hope, that he would start having compassion which would change things and that this whole affair would be solved peacefully.My private contacts in Congo confirm that the fraud is Mr. Moliere's way of living for many years back.

Is this a warning not to deal with this guy?

I don't know about China, but in the west we get lots of bogus email from "African businessmen", we just delete them straight away, they're always bad news (fraudsters, scammers, and probably Russian* computer hackers).

*although then there's always the news story of a hacker living in Holland or Paris, but Russian hackers are more infamous

Mr Molière Ngandu is the president of One World Pary (Unu Mondo):
http://www.unu-mondo.org/pageID_9883048.html

Well, that's a bit strange... I think some explanations or resolutions are in order, then?

I see that like an personal blaming attack against Moliere.

@fanjono: I don't understand your intention.

Do you want enforce svarm attacks against Moliere or isolation of Moliere internal of (- good question what -) Esperanto community? Or do you solely want attack UNU MONDO party?

I have seens your public blaming messages against Moliere at Yahoo discussion groups, too. Someones also could assume that you by yourself are "the bad guy", isn't? Really doesn't need to blame others in public like the Nazis did, isn't?

Stop it, please.

Tjeri:Mr Molière Ngandu is the president of One World Pary (Unu Mondo):
http://www.unu-mondo.org/pageID_9883048.html

I notice the vice-president of that organisation is Hokan Lundberg, who is a former Lernu team member and one of the founders of this site.

I wonder if any of the current Lernu team members know if there is any truth to this story?

BTW, there’s also an older [url=?t=10108]Esperanto version of this thread[/url].

Chainy:I notice the vice-president of that organisation is Hokan Lundberg, who is a former Lernu team member and one of the founders of this site.

I wonder if any of the current Lernu team members know if there is any truth to this story?

We know nothing about it. I suspect that the One World party is not very active so Hokan himself probably does not know anything about this matter. I have not asked him, and it isn't really my business.

qwertz:Do you want enforce svarm attacks against Moliere or isolation of Moliere internal of (- good question what -) Esperanto community?

I know nothing about the truth (or untruth) of this situation. But if someone in the Esperanto community cheats someone in another country, there is usually no way to get your money back.

It is common to publicize the situation in Esperanto forums, to appeal to the person's sense of shame and perhaps get some money back. The person who was cheated warns other Esperanto speakers against sending money or gifts to person who cheated them.

This has happened before.

Some years back an individual was sending messages to Esperanto organizations to ask for expensive ink cartridges to be used to print Esperanto materials. Some Esperantists and Esperanto organizations contributed. The individual was later found to be a fraud. People sent messages to Esperanto lists to warn one another against giving any money or gifts to this person. You can find some messages in this old thread about the situation.

It is possible to tell a lie in Esperanto, same as any other language. Not every Esperanto speaker is an honourable person. We should all be careful who we do business with, and who we send money to.

In some cases Esperantists are a golden opportunity for spam! So many of us are willing to overlook initial concerns, as part of our extra courage given to us by learning a new language. In other cases, being an Esperantist is a golden opportunity for a misunderstanding to occur during your business transactions or to make accidental enemies due to such misunderstandings - since we're all second language learners, sometimes we don't get what the other person's saying or their culture.

I'm curious now as to which way this story will go.

@ Qwertz:
Well, Nazis, or ordinary public citizens (e.g. the ones we don't tell the names of criminals in case they try vigilante-style "justice"), were/are a bit more dangerous, unpredictable and in some sad cases downright too mentally underdeveloped to cope and deal maturely with this sort of information, but Esperantists, to be honest, aren't exactly going to do anything dangerous as far as we all know, and the most that will happen is an air of distrust will set over the Esperanto community towards the blamed individual.

It does help to have more coherent and open-ended information so we can make our own conclusions, but it's not really comparable to the situation in 1930's-40's Germany and other parts of Europe.