500px Assignments

Has anyone heard of this or been involved in it?

Got an unexpected E-mail from 500px regarding an Assignment involving architectural photography. Checked their site and yes, the signer is an actual person who does work for the company, and the company does have a commercial program called Assignments going on. What puzzles me is that I'm not even a 500px member—never have been. Guess they googled me up.

Was wondering what's the take of people here on that.

I'm gonna go with scam.

Have you checked the legitimacy of every link in the email? It is very common for scammers to contact photographers/models claiming to be from real companies. The links they provide will lead to the real company's sites but some of the contact details will be fake. The email will be from a domain that appears legit but isn't. It may be from bizdev500px.com or AS5IGNMENTS500PX.com or it may be a spoofed domain (https://www.theregiste​r.co.uk …8/homograph_att​ack_again/). The only way to be sure is to go the the legit website by typing in the domain name, then find a phone number and call the person.

My spidersense tingles because the 500px website specifically states that "Assignments are location-based jobs available exclusively to 500px community members". I am sure that they have thousands of users in the area that they could send this too so why are they giving it to you?

If the email said, "we have these jobs available to members so join up" then I could understand. But going outside their membership for a scheme that they state is exclusive to members makes no sense.