Remember Rick Dyer? Back in February the "Master Bigfoot Tracker" displayed a supposedly real bigfoot corpse at a Houston flea market. I noted back then that Dyer appeared to be following in the footsteps of P. T. Barnum, and that if his bigfoot were real he would be having actual scientists verify the discovery rather than dragging it around to flea markets and the like. When Dyer announced that the bigfoot corpse was in fact a hoax, nobody was surprised. Except, apparently, for this guy. Andrew Clancy, an Australian man who spent three months touring with Dyer, claims that he thought the body was real the whole time.
And no, it doesn't surprise me that a scammer like Dyer would also be an asshole. It kind of goes with the territory. In fact, given that he was charging people to see the body and publicly claiming that it was real, I'm wondering how he's managed to avoid being charged with fraud. It seems to me that some jail time might convince him that going around ripping people off is just a bad idea. To be fair, at this point anybody believing a word out of Dyer's mouth probably only has themselves to blame, but at the same time that's no reason to let his ridiculous confidence games go unchecked.
I can't say whether Clancy is being truthful in his statements, but either way Dyer comes off as a complete tool. Either he scammed Clancy out of a bunch of money, or Clancy was a partner in the scam who got thrown under the bus as soon as things started to unravel.
In March, Mr Clacy learned that he had Dyer was behind a second Bigfoot hoax when he posted on his Facebook page: ‘Coming clean about everything is necessary for a new start! From this moment on I will speak the truth! No more lies, tall tales or wild goose chases to mess with the haters!’
Clacy returned back home, but not without a serious toll: he was $12,000 out of pocket. He had also damaged his business, and says he was subject to a torrent of ridicule. ‘I was broken-hearted when I came back to Australia,’ he told Nine MSN. ‘I felt like a fool.’
To make matters worse, Dyer has embarked upon an online campaign to boycott Clacy, alleging on his blog that Clacy knew about the hoax throughout the period he was promoting it. He has even allegedly been hacking the Victorian’s emails. ‘He is actively trying to destroy me,’ Clacy said.
And no, it doesn't surprise me that a scammer like Dyer would also be an asshole. It kind of goes with the territory. In fact, given that he was charging people to see the body and publicly claiming that it was real, I'm wondering how he's managed to avoid being charged with fraud. It seems to me that some jail time might convince him that going around ripping people off is just a bad idea. To be fair, at this point anybody believing a word out of Dyer's mouth probably only has themselves to blame, but at the same time that's no reason to let his ridiculous confidence games go unchecked.
I can't say whether Clancy is being truthful in his statements, but either way Dyer comes off as a complete tool. Either he scammed Clancy out of a bunch of money, or Clancy was a partner in the scam who got thrown under the bus as soon as things started to unravel.
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