Can You Believe This?

I received this email on Wednesday:

"Hello and good day Please i am interested in your works,can i make a direct purchase from you?.
Thanks"

I responded, asking what, in particular, were they interested in? I also asked where they learned about me (just for purposes of tracking marketing). I got this response on Thursday:

"Hello Philip
Thanks so much for your email and prompt response/reply i really appreciate it because it means a lot to me,sorry for the late response my wife has been sick,please note that i would be interested in what listed/on the link below,so let me know what you think about my selection and choice and also let me know if i made the right decision plus you could also let me know if there are additional information's i missed out on

ALL FRAMED
http://www.philipkresg​ephotography.com …97539/h5f519397​#h5f519397
12 x 24 print matted

http://www.philipkresg​ephotography.com …97539/h5f51b882​#h5f51b882
12 x 24 print matted

http://www.philipkresg​ephotography.com …97539/h5f51a88b​#h5f51a88b
12 x 24 print matted

http://www.philipkresg​ephotography.com …97539/h5f5253d1​#h5f51fe33
12x18 print matted


Secondly i need you to also let me know how much it costs excluding shipping fees which means you do not need to worry yourself about logistics or shipping as my shipment broker has some luxury items to ship for my wife alongside your works and finally i would need you to also email me details of where the works would be picked up from and please note that payment would be made to you via a cheque or bank draft by my personal assistant and also take into consideration that as soon as it has been cleared by your bank and funds have been made available then you can go ahead release the items for pickup/shipping from your end.
So if this is okay and fine by you i would be needing the full names to be written on the payment,address of where the payment would be sent to and also phone numbers inclusive of mobile and landline for logistics and shipment purposes,so that once i get the information's from you i would give you an update on when the payment has been sent,thanks so much and look to forward to hearing from you as soon as possible
Regards"

It included name and address, which I have not included here.

I answered, providing price quote and giving my mailing address (a PO Box). That was on Thursday of this week. Then this morning I got the reply:

"Hello Dear Phil
How do you do today,fine i guess?,first of all i would like to use this medium to apologize for the late response it's because i have been so busy with work and also a tragic incident occurred within my family which has made me so sad,down and depressed at the moment,its so sad and quite unfortunate that my wife's health has deteriorated and she has been put on life support and because of this i had to sort out one or two things but i want to make sure that we conclude our transaction as soon as possible,because i don't want to disappoint you and let you down.
Also there is something i think i must bring to your notice,after a reconciliation of accounts last night,i discovered that somehow my personal assistant and my associate that made payment available to you had somehow overpaid you,the payment that was meant for another transaction was sent to you and the one meant for you was sent to another,however i want to believe and have faith in you that i would not have any problem with you as regards that,and also because of the time frame available for us to conclude the transaction i would need you to please bear with me and please save me time,also what i want you to please do for me is that as soon as you have received the payment and it has been cleared by your bank and funds have been made available to you,i will need you to please deduct your money and keep the remaining funds with you and let you know what it would used for either for additional purchases or one or two things, please let me know if you are okay and fine with this and also please let me know when you get the payment in the mail and also this e-mail.
Regards"

Am I the only one who smells a rat here?

Absolute scam. Seen many versions of it. Just cut off contact. This will be nothing but a waste of your time.

Yes, I can believe it.

It's called an overpayment scam. This practitioner has added a new feature to the formula, an imaginary sick wife plus unspecified family troubles. He'd better find another line of work, because he's not very good at what he's doing.

OhLook wrote in post #18164859
It's called an overpayment scam. This practitioner has added a new feature to the formula, an imaginary sick wife plus unspecified family troubles. He'd better find another line of work, because he's not very good at what he's doing.

Microsoft did some research years ago on the science behind internet scams and iirc, one of the main objectives in the scammer's communications is to help filter out those that reply as being gullible -essentially self-identifing as such. By having only the most gullible respond to the request, it maximizes the scammers efforts by working the scam to those most likely to fall for it. Saves a lot of time and effort over trying to scam somebody less likely to follow through at some stage of the process.

I would have binned the first message. Illiterate.

Scam XXXL
Do not waste electrons communicating with such life forms.

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Yes, I have no trouble believing that. I get at least one such "offer" every week - someone who is 'desperate' to hire me, or to buy my work. Just another scam, of which there are many thousands.

I am surprised that you were surprised by this - I'd have thought that most all photographers with any web presence whatsoever get these types of emails all the time.

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The first contact was a red flag due to grammar. Total scam. I'm surprised he took it this far with you. Spam block them now.

Foodguy wrote in post #18164946
Microsoft did some research years ago on the science behind internet scams and iirc, one of the main objectives in the scammer's communications is to help filter out those that reply as being gullible -essentially self-identifing as such. By having only the most gullible respond to the request, it maximizes the scammers efforts by working the scam to those most likely to fall for it. Saves a lot of time and effort over trying to scam somebody less likely to follow through at some stage of the process.

And now you say that it makes 100% total sense. As soon as they mention a cheque/forward to the shipper/designer/whate​ver I am going to bail. Far better for them to filter me out right from the start with some bad grammar.

I wouldn't say that I was surprised by this. My closing comment in the opening post - "Am I the only one who smells a rat here?" - was meant to have a tone of sarcasm. I was sharing here more as an FYI to all.

However, I would say that the timing was perfect. I had just recently placed several photographs for sale, on consignment, in two local venues. My initial thought was between "this is a scam" and "maybe they saw my work locally." That's why I responded.

There were several indicators in their second e-mail - the poor grammar, the terms cheque or bank draft, shipment broker, personal assistant - that made me suspicious. There were also some errors within the order itself, so my thought was to ferret it out - play along, so to speak. I made very sure not to include any specific personal information in my response.

On seeing the last response from them, I was tempted to encourage them to continue the transaction, but ask that they deal directly with my cousin, who is a Nigerian Prince and is looking for some help in transferring funds to the US.

I have indeed blocked them.

philk54 wrote in post #18165086
On seeing the last response from them, I was tempted to encourage them to continue the transaction, but ask that they deal directly with my cousin, who is a Nigerian Prince and is looking for some help in transferring funds to the US.

LMAO!!!!

Tell them you'd like to discuss it over the phone, and they'll tell you they just had ear surgery and can't use a phone.

"On both ears?"
"yes"

I received an email threatening me with a lawsuit for owing some non-specific debt. I played along, replying with the same bad grammar and telling them that I was so sorry for missing their calls and other attempts at contact and sending them my (randomly generated) credit card and bank account/routing info to take care of this as quickly as possible. I then told them that I was including an extra $xxx for them to send to my fourth favorite cousins wedding cake baker and $xxx for their troubles in doing so.

They replied back that the law did not allow for them to take payment by credit card or ACH draft and that I would need to buy a prepaid card from a store, and gave examples of the stores that carried the card. I then replied back to them that I was at the store, but was confused because there were three of that brand of prepaid card. One in yellow, one in red, and one in blue. Which did I need?

Then, they replied showing a picture of the card and the address of one of my local Food Lion stores. That's when I stopped. Haven't heard back from them again.

I also get the phone calls claiming to be the IRS and threatening to come and take me to jail. I call them back with random crap, until they stop calling me. I called one back and asked him if he was really an IRS agent. He said he was. I asked him if he was in the IRS building at *enter random address* and he replied that he was. I told him that was good, because I was also an IRS agent and I'm right across the hall and asked him if he could bring me some random name's file. I've answered the phone "XX County Sheriff's Office, Internet Crimes Division." That one always goes over well. And then, there's the last resort of calling them and offering hetero or homosexual services. Eventually, they stop calling me.

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That's a great way to handle these things, Kevin!

I'm glad that you have some fun with it. It's always nice when people like to spend some time having fun like that , and aren't just all serious and trying to "get back as quickly as possible to the business that needs to be done".

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