Gringo teaching thief reported anonymously to El Tiempo
By Daniel Brody, Editorial Director
Thursday, September 9, 2010
A citizen reporter has written an anonymous screed to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo to complain about an American English teacher who is taking advantage of his students financially.
The citizen says that about a year ago her daughter was failing English classes and that the family searched for a private tutor to help her out.
A sign was posted around her housing complex, advertising a "native-speaking professor available for private at-home classes." The man behind the signs was an American named Tom.
A friendly guy, Tom soon became friends with the family, and began opening up to them. He called himself a Chistian with good values, and seemed very thoughtful. When he complained about a difficult living situation that he was going through, the reporter's mother offered an apartment that she had for him to stay in temporarily while he looked for another place to live. What was meant to last a week turned into three months, and the family had to call the police to kick him out. He left a trail of over a million pesos in debt that the family had to pay, and neighbors often complained that he arrived home drunk and disorderly.
The family brought the case before the local public prosecutor's office, but the lawyers there said they could do nothing because Tom was a foreigner. They went to the local DAS office as well, hoping that the government bureaucracy that processes visas for foreigners could do something since Tom was also staying in the country illegally, but the family was simply informed that reports like these happen all the time. They also learned that they weren't Tom's only victims.
The reporter says that Tom has leeched off of at least five landlords in Bogotá, never paying rent and forcing the house or apartment owners to pay for his living expenses.
Tom was also a chef, and supposedly "worked" for people who hired him to cook, especially in the northern neighborhoods of Bogotá.
The anonymous writer felt relieved that the only thing the family lost was money, instead of something worse, and recommended that other people hire professors through institutions rather than off the street, lest someone have "an enemy in their own home."
The article signed off by wondering what would happen to a Colombian in a similar situation in the United States, and answered its own question by saying that the Colombian would immediately be deported. But in Colombia, one can tell all the authorities they want about a foreign thief, and the man can just continue robbing people, "without even batting an eyelid."
Check out the article at the El Tiempo website, and beware.
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