Possible email scam????

Jeff_Milo

Below are some emails I have received in the last few days. Maybe its just me but I am thinking this is a scam, what do you think??

Initial email:

Hello ,
Hope you're having a nice time! I am getting in touch with you concerning our wedding taking place this year in Riverside,CA.My name is Nick Lemy from Ireland (currently working and living in London, United Kingdom). I am coming over to Riverside with my Fiance Kaffy Morris who's Trinidad & Tobago by nature but has actually
naturalized in London.

We'll be starting a new beginning together 'cause my Wife to be just got a job in State.We will be getting married on the 5th of Feb,2010 and we have decided to get married in The States since we're moving on and pretty know our new home would be wonderful and a good location to raise kids.

We will be needing' a good Photographer to take care of the picture aspect of our wedding occasion both ceremony and reception for our guests' convenience because we require the best for the best memories photo's for our children and as a matter of fact we have made a good budget for an outstanding event. Please let us know if you can help plan a wonderful occasion, a success!

Regards,
Nick

2nd email: (after my general response)

Hello Jeff Milo .

How are you doing ? Thank you on your swift response to my first email to you .. It's such a great thing to read from you so soon, I believe you are having a wonderful day to your self.I am currently in London where i live and work and i can't wait for the wedding day to come...
I will be arriving Riverside with my fiance on the 20th of Jan 2010.The wedding ceremony and reception will be taking place at a venue and the venue will be secured the same week i arrived in .i want it to be the last thing to do there. though some Venue have been contacted but we will need to look around to get a better location so as to have a memorabe event.The wedding ceremony will be starting by 10am while the reception will followed immediately,I would like to rush things up here because i still have various job/business (s) intact and would like to spend more time with my family and loved ones before coming because i might not have enough time to do so in the nearest future which is why i can only be available for a face to face consultation on my arrival with my fiance..i will like to know if it okay by you.

I want the best picture for the memory of our unborn children and families. I went through your site before decided to contact you and i like to secure the photography aspect before the next vendor.

I will prefer the Package 1 for my wedding package.I will like to know your mode of payment .. I will be looking forward to your swift response to my email asap.
Regards.
Nick

Third email after I suggested a few locations. I have not yet mentioned what the retainer needs to be

Hello Jeffrey Milo,
Thank you on your swift response to my email.. I am okay with the service charge for the wedding package.The price is with in the range i have on my budget list for the photographer aspect for my wedding program. I will like to in form you that the payment for your deposit fees will be done via certified cashier check drawn in your name by my Associate over there in the state .I will want you to get back to me with your full Name and Address & Phone number in which a deposit payment will be issued out to and the day and date will be secure with you.I am so glad to have you as my wedding photographer and i will be looking forward to the face to face consultation soon .I will be waiting for your prompt response asap .
Do have a great Day.

Regards.
Nick

I plan on responding very politely asking to physically speak to him on the phone. Am I just being paranoid????

tenoverthenose

scam

ian408

You're being scamed.

ChatKat

FH Scam too
I got an email today that I think was a scam via one of my dgrin posts too. They were looking for someone to teach accounting software.

Mispelled words and poorly worded sentences are key. For some reason photographers seem to be a target. I see a number of them get the "we will over pay you and you will refund us money before the check bounces as a fraudulent check" scam a lot.

ian408

These sorts of things seem to be directed at anyone who sells on the 'net.

Darren Troy C

His brother in Zimbabwe has a cousin in Uganda who's mother wants to send me my share of her uncle's inheritance of nearly 5 million US Dollars. They just need my bank account info so they can make the depsoit without my having to lift a finger. I feel so blessed.

Mishka

It's a scam. I got one like this once...wasn't sure of it at first. They ended up sending me a retainer "check" for an amount grossly over the correct amount. Of course, the check was counterfeit. The way the scam works is this:

They send you a check for the retainer, balance, whatever, but it's an amount way more than you asked for. Then, they tell you to deposit the check and just wire or send them the difference. Your bank goes ahead and releases the funds to you because they are required by law to do so. But, it actually takes about 2-3 weeks for the bank to process the check, at which time they realize it's a fake. The scammer is hoping you've already sent them the check for the difference in the meantime, robbing you of several thousand $$s.

Fortunately, by the time they sent me the "check," I was already very suspicious...so I called the bank to confirm that it was, in fact, a counterfeit check. So, I would advise against responding to any more of their emails.

Wil Davis

The first 7 words of the original e-mail show it to almost certainly be a scam. Your biggest mistake was to respond, for by doing so, you've signaled to the sender that the e-mail address they used is good, and has a real person at the end of it.

You respond = you lose (be prepared for even more scam e-mail)

A hard lesson, but fact of life unfortunately…

Welcome to the 21st century

- Wil

Weisel

Yes, an obvious scam. It's the old cashiers check scam. I've gotten TWO of those lately for my photo services. One of them, they clain to want to pay me for this out of state wedding, but pay me about $2k extra so I can pay off their "bartender" before the wedding. All totally easy to read SCAM. Usually from the first few sentences of the email. For one thing, the broken english is usually the same type of grammatical errors as the rest of the scammers.

Too bad society has to deal with crooks. I hate locking my car doors.

Cmau

Yup. Agree with everyone else, definitely a scam. Used to get these a bunch for ebay sales, and even when I was trying to sublet my apartment once on Kijiji. Looks like they're getting smart enough not to mention being from anywhere in Africa, but you can bet that's where they're based. Every single one of these things sounds the same, so if you get more, just know that they're not legit and don't answer.

Jeff_Milo

Wait.... the check the guy from Africa is sending me for $25m is not real? I didn't win the World Cup Lottery? I'm not a long lost descendant mentioned in that rich guys will? awwwww man what a bummer :yikes

Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

I think I read the first email to quickly and just replied with my cookie cutter response. By the second email I was thinking this was a scam, for the same reasons mentioned above, all the broken English and using my 1st and last name in the greeting. By the third email I was pretty much sold on its a scam, wanted to post it here for two fold, have all of you confirm my suspicions and alert any other Photographers who might get a similar type email. I was checking www.snoops.com last night and found out there are several variations of this scam and some of the emails are really good with no broken English.

Sucks the world we live in today you have to be on your guard for all of this BS.

Shima

To watch them wiggle in their seats under the scam you could tell them you don't take cashiers checks but are willing to take paypal. See what they say. Bet they'll get eerily quiet.

elizabeth_Luna

HAHAH omg Jeff I got the same EMAIL! Nooooooo joke same person too!

marikris

I got one recently saying they've received my resume. Since I have it up on places like creative jobs central dot com, I thought for some odd reason, they're matching potential employees with employers. It's my second such email lol, and the other one I think might be legit with a phone number in my city. They were also both for teaching kids general education...which, to my knowledge, I have never applied for (unless it's for teaching art, then yes, but I've received answers to those already).

So this second one is specifically for my tutoring this person's daughter. It was a really long email, and the English got worse toward the end. What I gathered was he'd pay me $40/hr for tutoring said daughter who will be accompanied by the nanny wherever I wanted to hold the session, and the money will *ahem* be then transferred to me via my bank account with MUCH excess so that I could pay the nanny's wages also. Then whatever is left, I could keep...HUH?!

marikris

Oh, I also got one from FEDEX claiming they needed someone to transfer money for them from somewhere in Africa. I replied, "The FBI received a copy of this email and are now investigating it. I hope you get the help you need."

Cmau

Shima - can't recall the exact details, but I believe there's a scam that can even bypass Paypal's security. If you're interested, I'm sure you could find out more by Googling, but I think the moral of the story is that your instincts matter far more than the method of payment.

bike21

A hilarious if somewhat offensive site about a guy having fun with these scammer types...

http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

Hours of entertainment I hate scammers, I posted an ad last night on Craigslist for some bike parts I need and immediately got 3 emails for various scams. They must have crawlers set up to look for new posts or something.

That Lem Guy

Jeff_Milo wrote:

Below are some emails I have received in the last few days. Maybe its just me but I am thinking this is a scam, what do you think??

I plan on responding very politely asking to physically speak to him on the phone. Am I just being paranoid????

Thanks for posting 'cause I just got this today and I get called Lemmy every now and again! It caught my eye right away and almost responded with a "I have no record of you signing with us." message but I just deleted it. I should have marked it as spam though.

Thanks again

That Lem Guy

VayCayMom

SCAM my son in law is a banker, you can bet the check he was going to give you would be for more than your payment. These "cashier checks" can take a long time to bounce, even if you went to your bank and they cashed it for you, it could bounce 6 months later.
tell the guy CASH ONLY!!!

l.k.madison

Clue one that it's a scam,

The guy says he's from Ireland - any decent European will have next to flawless English, because, that is where English originated after all. Well, and all of the other obvious reasons, but that was the one that caught my eye.

I wouldn't accept anything from this guy, not another email, not a phone call, not a dime.

You're not paranoid, it's your instincts, which is always the quickest way to detect something's amiss.

Art Scott

I have been blessed with 2 of these.....the last one was drawn on a bank that has a branch here.....took it in there to have the account numbers checked and see if it was good.....turned out to be a closed account in Portland Oregon for MC parts store.....the FED X package was out of INdianapolis from the Nasa Space CTR Motor pool there......the FBI told me to hang on to the eveidence incase they ever decided to bring charges.....I told them the packing list had not been touched by me....still sealed in the envelope....they did not want to waste their time finger printing the packing list.........I still have check, Fed X package and packing list as a reminder of why I only accept payment thru PayPal or cash....even local checks have to clear 3 weeks prior to work done......

Scott_Quier

Art Scott wrote:

I have been blessed with 2 of these.....the last one was drawn on a bank that has a branch here.....took it in there to have the account numbers checked and see if it was good.....turned out to be a closed account in Portland Oregon for MC parts store.....the FED X package was out of INdianapolis from the Nasa Space CTR Motor pool there......the FBI told me to hang on to the eveidence incase they ever decided to bring charges.....I told them the packing list had not been touched by me....still sealed in the envelope....they did not want to waste their time finger printing the packing list.........I still have check, Fed X package and packing list as a reminder of why I only accept payment thru PayPal or cash....even local checks have to clear 3 weeks prior to work done......

That's too cool - the FedEx package!

As for local checks - So far I've been lucky. But, then again, I only do that business after I've had at least on face-to-face and my radar is pretty good. In another life, I had to accept a check from someone I didn't know. First thing I did was to call the bank and verify the account and whether the balance would cover the check. Next thing was a trip to that bank to cash the check. Then onto my bank to deposit the cash. Granted, that could get to be a pain in the backside if one needed to do this on a regular basis.

VayCayMom

bike21 wrote:

A hilarious if somewhat offensive site about a guy having fun with these scammer types...

http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

Hours of entertainment I hate scammers, I posted an ad last night on Craigslist for some bike parts I need and immediately got 3 emails for various scams. They must have crawlers set up to look for new posts or something.

OH my gosh, I spent over an hour on the EbolaMonkey site, it is hysterical, the photos are priceless. LMAO