Attempted Scam...

Bakat

I know this kind of thing is old hat on eBay but if you haven't seen this scam before, let me share with you...

On Sept 10th I got an email from a person in the UK that had all the hall marks of a scam. Broken English, foriegner wanting to hire an unknown , starting out photographer in the US, anonomous "yahoo" email address... Since the original email had a UK address and phone #, I had a relative in England call them and talk to them.... Hmmm seemed legit to I contacted them back with my fees etc and never heard from them again until last night...



How have you been doing?am sincerely sorry about the delay and not filling you in with the ongoing situation.
well we have made our decisions about emplOying your services and there's no looking back.
All you just have to do is this, try your best to give us a really befitting photography for the best memories of our wedding day in future and for our children.My wife will be coming over to the states pretty soon from france where she's shopping at the moment.
We are employing a french band to play on that day and the musical group will be flying to the states from Republic du Benin,s so we have prepared the same money orders for you and the musical manager. but i have instructed my client to mail in money orders to you for an amount of 4250$ from which you'll deduct your deposit and kindly help us forward the rest of the money to the Musician who will be playing on our wedding occassion. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon, i hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Ok I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday so I diplomatically responded...

Jennifer,
I am sorry, since I did not hear back from you I have booked another client for November 28th.
Thank you,
Kathleen

To which I received this reply


But what can you do to aide me Kathleen?
would you please help me to cash the oncoming payment that has been issued to your name.
I will look for some other photographer,so that you can help me in making due payment .
I will be waiting to know what your opinion is.
Thanks and God bless you.

Jenny.


So for anyone who hasn't seen this before, this is a scam.

Most of us are savvy enough to know this. But there are those kind hearted individuals who might get sucked in, so I thought I'd share the warning...

Kat

photodoug

would be FUN to recieve those faked money orders....frame 'em

Bakat

photodoug wrote:

would be FUN to recieve those faked money orders....frame 'em

You know there are people who scam scammers...
Hmm... how fun to have them send the MO, then say, "Oh I haven't gotten that yet, you'll have to cancel it and mail another, and another, and another...

Scott_Quier

Bakat wrote:

You know there are people who scam scammers...
Hmm... how fun to have them send the MO, then say, "Oh I haven't gotten that yet, you'll have to cancel it and mail another, and another, and another...

There's one guy in Pittsburg (I think) who seems to do this for a living, all legit, and posts storys of his adventures on his server. If you have LOTS of spare time, you might enjoy reading this thread. I loaded up the first page to get the URL and found that it's something like 101 pages long now. But, it is really funny at times. Check it out here.