MIAMI, Okla. — An Ottawa County businesswoman under investigation for allegedly defrauding clients out of thousands of dollars has a 26-year history of passing fraudulent checks and other financial crimes.
Diane Wiford, 51, of Miami, was indicted in Oklahoma for allegedly passing nine counterfeit checks under four different surnames, and online court records show Wiford also ran afoul of the law in Missouri by writing four checks that went bad.
A phone message left for Whiford was not returned.
In a social media post under the name Wiford Bus Tours, Wiford denied any wrongdoing, saying he “at no time acted with malice or intent to harm anyone.”
Wiford and her husband, Kenny, are the owners of Miami-based Wiford Tours and Travel. The travel agency is the subject of an investigation by Miami Police after customers allegedly purchased trips and vacations through the travel agency but never received their tickets. Other business names used were Wiford Travel and Kendy Wiford.
Miami Police Chief Thomas Anderson said the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office is handling the investigation.
Wiford's digital financial records show 12 small claims or money judgments and two garnishments against her in Oklahoma and Missouri. Online court records show two money judgments have been issued against Kenny Wiford.
Missouri's false imprisonment caught up with Wiford on Tuesday, when she was booked into the Ottawa County Jail on an outstanding Missouri arrest warrant.
According to court records, Wiford legally used the surnames Cott, Click, Brumley, Minson and Leafle. His companies, Wiford Tours and Travel, have been registered with the Oklahoma Secretary of State since November 2023, and Wiford Travel has been registered since April 2024.
Scamming people and finding ways to beat the system has always been a dirty coin for Whiford, and the criminal charges often overlapped with one another.
For example, while currently on probation, Wiford was indicted on charges of writing bad checks to circumvent the Buffalo Run Casino's card system and defrauding the casino of $193,000 worth of free gambling cards, according to federal court records. While on probation, Wiford violated one of the conditions of his probation by writing three bad checks, according to Taney County criminal records.
According to a probation order dated May 11, 2011, Whiford wrote three fake checks in Taney County using the name Diane Cott between Nov. 6, 2010 and Nov. 22, 2010. The checks were for $73.64, $103.09 and $64.41 and were all drawn on a non-existent bank account at Regions Bank.
Records show that after repeated requests over the years to resolve the forged check problem, Cotto was indicted on four counts of forging checks in 2016. But the order stated that she had issued 18 checks totaling $2,043.33.
To make matters worse, a court issued an outstanding warrant for Whiford in 2018 after he failed to show up to court, online records show.
During this time, she was banned from doing business in North Dakota for fraudulently selling timeshare vacations.
In 2015, North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem issued a cease and desist order against Wiford, who was using the name Diane Cott.
Wiford operated businesses under the names Cheap Branson Fun, Christian Travel and Galaxy Christian Ministries.
According to the nine-page order, she was accused of violating North Dakota's residential solicitation sales law, consumer fraud law and do-not-call law by calling consumers and offering them cheap vacations if they attended a timeshare seminar and paid a $99 participation fee.
One elderly person complained that their phone number was on the state's do-not-call list, but agreed to attend a timeshare seminar with Cott, then changed their mind. Cott reportedly refused to refund their fees.
According to the order, Cotto failed to provide consumers with cancellation notices required by law for residential solicitation sales and failed to obtain signed contracts before charging consumers' credit cards.
When investigators contacted Cotto by phone, she reportedly did not apologize, did not cooperate and ignored the formal civil investigation.
To file a consumer complaint with the Oklahoma Attorney General, please follow this link If you believe you have been a victim of one of Wiford’s latest scams, please contact the Miami Police Department at 918-542-5585.
