Eric Gunther ripoff scam artist fraud Chicago Illinois

Well I'm not sure what the best way to go about this, but Eric scammed me out of money and I just want people to know not to trust this photographer or to at least be cautious. He is a very good, smooth talking and a decent photographer and used both to his advantage.

Basically he befriended me, started talking about how he would help me get an agency in Chicago to get into acting, which is what I really want to do, and then talked about the idea of making even more money by setting up a pay-site. Needless to say he didn't do anything for me with any agency in Chicago. And about the pay-site we were planning on starting up together. The story is we needed money to set up the billing to get VISA on board, which it true, at least with the companies CCbill and Ibill. I gave him the money because he said that the check he sent out to set up the billing was cashed sooner than he expected it to be and needed to put the money in his account, this was in January. Unfortunitely since I thought of him as a friend, I gave him the money, cash, no receipt, a big mistake, I know.

In February, the site still wasn't launched. His comment was he wanted to get someone that new programming to set up the site better with graphics, etc. It started to get difficult to get a hold of him.
In March, the same story. April, the same and now basically it was no contact from him unless he decided to talk to me. This is when I started asking for the money back.

May, there is basically no contact from him and the site is still not up. I went on vacation at the end of May and the only contact that I got from him was and e-mail replying to one my husband sent asking about when he and I were going to start shooting again for the site. The reply I got was, you guys are in Canada, how can we shoot? When I got back, I checked his model mayhem site and it said that he would be back in Chicago in 100 days, dated May 25th, the day before I left for vacation. He never said anything to me, has never returned any of my calls even before I found this out and still hasn't. I'm working on pressing fraud charges against him, not to get my money back, although that would be nice, but mainly to make sure that other people know who he really is.

He calls himself a professional but it's obvious he is not. I have worked with a lot more amateurs, and just because they may not take the perfect picture, they respect me, are honest with me and all around good people.

Tonya
Madison, Wisconsin
U.S.A.