A great starting off point on Jean's LiveJournal is the page comprising her memorable entries "Just Who Are These Girls?".

Another discussion about the events is classified as a top "wank" over at Fandom Wank.

Jean also wrote a well-reviewed book (fans of Colleen Doran may remember her recommendation) called "When a Fan Hits the Shit: The Rise and Fall of a Phony Charity". It's available on Amazon, and her website, Turondo.com.

Jean's comments:

One of the things that I found contributed to the Bit of Earth con was specifically the anonymity of the Internet. The bad girls of BoE created followings for themselves via their fanfiction, and when things got tough, they simply rejected their identities, changed their usernames, and voila! Clean slate. They could even join the ranks of people complaining about their former Internet persona--or defend it as an "outside observer."

That was the force behind Amy Player's gender change. She didn't announce that she'd just become a male hobbit, she made her old persona, "Victoria Bitter," die in a tragic suicide, then a few weeks later "Jordan Wood" began appearing on the Internet. But they were such smooth talkers that they had already managed to drag Sean Astin into their schemes, so "Jordan" had to make public appearances as a "real male," at events with Sean.

The villains in your article appear to have indulged in this sort of "sockpuppetry" too. I recommend that everyone should do their best to obtain--and Check--ISP addresses on suspicious posters. Livejournal, bulletin board "forums" and other blogs have options to save each poster's ISP addresses, although often only the "owner" can view them. But if someone suspects there is sockpuppetry going on, a responsible blog owner is usually willing to check these. It's very easy, and it shows whether two "separate people" have in fact been posting from the same computer. Amy and Abbey were so cocky, they never imagined they'd get caught, so they posted under their various international sock puppets from their home computer--a fact we discovered after the scam...

...My original livejournal is literally the complete archive of the discovery of BoE's scams--as people from all over the world checked in with their horror stories. People don't think they can be conned, especially smart people. I had NO IDEA that anyone would lie to the extent that Abbey and Amy did, and with such cautious effort to make them believable. The energy those girls put into creating the con was astounding. Anyway, the LJ shows the process of uncovering the whole fiasco, which Zach summarized in his article..

Who knows? It may help some fan recognize a con someday.

Thanks, I had not heard that about the exclusivity contracts, but that is an especial shame.

Something similar may have happened with some photographers who had contracted with Senter, who turned down other business (IIRC), and were never reimbursed for highly expensive equipment.

On one of the Yahoo! Groups and over on http://www.con-news.com , some of the ex-JumpCon staff revealed that they were denied the last weeks of pay.