Suspicious emails wanting to buy image for commerical/corporate use

nikraye

In the past 2 1/2 weeks I've received two emails requesting info on how to purchase an image from one of my galleries for commercial or corporate use. In both cases, the emails were sent through the "contact" form on my website. Also in both cases, the emails were not signed, did not identify which image specifically, nor did they identify the company they represent or indicate the intended commercial usage. Both emails were highly unprofessional and came from free email accounts (kris_joh@hotmail.com and kristinslocum@gmail.com). I have not responded to either email as I suspect they are not legit and may be some sort of phishing or other similar scam. Has anyone else received similar emails of late or have any advice on responding (or not) to these emails?

Rogue 1

nikraye wrote: »

In the past 2 1/2 weeks I've received two emails requesting info on how to purchase an image from one of my galleries for commercial or corporate use. In both cases, the emails were sent through the "contact" form on my website. Also in both cases, the emails were not signed, did not identify which image specifically, nor did they identify the company they represent or indicate the intended commercial usage. Both emails were highly unprofessional and came from free email accounts (kris_joh@hotmail.com and kristinslocum@gmail.com). I have not responded to either email as I suspect they are not legit and may be some sort of phishing or other similar scam. Has anyone else received similar emails of late or have any advice on responding (or not) to these emails?

Tough call, Nik - It could be a scam, or legit - if it were me, I'd probably 'feel them out' by sending an email to them from one of my 'okay for spam' addresses - see what comes back and go from there...

SamirD

I'd take the return email address and simply do a search on it. It should come up with all sorts of interesting info if it's a spammer. It's a long shot, but I'd also try searching them in the stopforumspam.com database. I use that religiously.

Rogue 1

SamirD wrote: »

I'd take the return email address and simply do a search on it. It should come up with all sorts of interesting info if it's a spammer. It's a long shot, but I'd also try searching them in the stopforumspam.com database. I use that religiously.

Interestingly enough Samir, I'd run searches for both names on Nik's behalf before posting my reply (not going to get much for the email domains yahoo/gmail) - - For the most part, I got zilch for a return - little to nothing tangible. But I didn't get any 'scammer' hits either - - - that's when I made my suggestion to reply with a non-critical email address... IF Nik was comfortable, of course...

OffTopic

I'm guessing they were asking to license the image, not purchase prints? I do a lot of rights-managed licensing from my site (which means that I can't use the SM commercial license) and while I have a standard rights-managed inquiry form embedded on my site it's been my experience that small businesses and sole props. have none to little experience in licensing images and don't understand how to fill out my form so they e-mail me with vague messages that used to make me suspicious too...but they don't give specifics because they don't understand the process until I talk with them a bit. It's also not uncommon for a small business to use a generic e-mail host...how many times do we tell photographers that they will look more professional if they get their own domain with e-mail? Frequently one of the key employees is surfing around for the right image on their free time at home and use a personal e-mail addy to inquire because they're not thinking about how that looks to you. Responding back from a 'safe' e-mail account rather than from your business e-mail sends the same message to them that you are worried about because of their e-mail address; that you are not legit.

While I would be more suspicious of a hotmail account than a gmail account (many people use gmail as their primary account because of how well it integrates with everything else), I always send a polite, professional response (from my business e-mail address) asking the right questions and so far they have always responded back with information that reassures me they are legit and it usually results in a sale. I had one just this week inquiring from a gmail account and after I responded to them I received a phone call from the owner (not the person who originally contacted me), had a great conversation with him, got all of the company info I needed including the business e-mail address (it was a very legit company) and it resulted in a sale. As long as you're not giving them your banking information or passwords how are they going to scam you? If they reply back that they want to send you a $10,000 check and need you to wire $7000 back or they send you a link that they want you to click then I would worry, otherwise it could very well be that they are uncomfortable because they don't understand the process but are trying to do the right thing instead of just illegally grabbing an image off the internet.

SamirD

OffTopic wrote: »

I'm guessing they were asking to license the image, not purchase prints? I do a lot of rights-managed licensing from my site (which means that I can't use the SM commercial license) and while I have a standard rights-managed inquiry form embedded on my site it's been my experience that small businesses and sole props. have none to little experience in licensing images and don't understand how to fill out my form so they e-mail me with vague messages that used to make me suspicious too...but they don't give specifics because they don't understand the process until I talk with them a bit. It's also not uncommon for a small business to use a generic e-mail host...how many times do we tell photographers that they will look more professional if they get their own domain with e-mail? Frequently one of the key employees is surfing around for the right image on their free time at home and use a personal e-mail addy to inquire because they're not thinking about how that looks to you. Responding back from a 'safe' e-mail account rather than from your business e-mail sends the same message to them that you are worried about because of their e-mail address; that you are not legit.

While I would be more suspicious of a hotmail account than a gmail account (many people use gmail as their primary account because of how well it integrates with everything else), I always send a polite, professional response (from my business e-mail address) asking the right questions and so far they have always responded back with information that reassures me they are legit and it usually results in a sale. I had one just this week inquiring from a gmail account and after I responded to them I received a phone call from the owner (not the person who originally contacted me), had a great conversation with him, got all of the company info I needed including the business e-mail address (it was a very legit company) and it resulted in a sale. As long as you're not giving them your banking information or passwords how are they going to scam you? If they reply back that they want to send you a $10,000 check and need you to wire $7000 back or they send you a link that they want you to click then I would worry, otherwise it could very well be that they are uncomfortable because they don't understand the process but are trying to do the right thing instead of just illegally grabbing an image off the internet.

Very interesting. The only thing I've seen is that if you reply to these type of messages, you seem to get more of them. Ie, if they know they're going through, you get added to some sort of list you can't get off of.