It starts with an email hoping that you won’t hold the fact that the writer is deaf, or blind, or black, or Asian, or Jewish or some other “disability” that we might hold against them. These are their words, not mine— I don’t care who or what you are, I don’t care if you have three eyes and five legs and stand 3’6”— especially since I’d never know this if it weren’t for you mentioning it in the first email.
AND I only mention it because that is the start of the email that I have gotten TWICE with two different elements from the “hope you don’t hold it against me” angle— and Veronica has gotten it once.
So this person will reach out to you and say they are a big fan of your work or your style, or a post you made on IG, FB, Twitter or whatever— they won’t be overly specific about which piece but they’ll tell you that they have a project of 18-31 illustrations and you’d be perfect for it and what would your price be?
So at this point, if you’re savvy or desperate, you’ll name a price. In my case I was specific and I gave them my “Gabe Kaplan” rate— so named for clients I anticipate will be difficult— so it’s usually 2x or more— in this case it was 4x my going rate and 8x my rate if they wanted publication rights. They agreed to the price and asked if I needed a deposit to get started.
Yep— that’s the norm— I need to be paid a piece up front so that I’m not chasing the entire amount at the end. I told them to send me a check for $4k— they said they wanted to send me a check for $8 so that they’d have less of a balance at the end.
I said OK and had them send it to a friend’s business a half a town awayand I figured that would be the last I heard from them. I still smelled a rat, I still saw red flags in this but the money was good enough to give it some effort to land the gig if by chance it was legit.
They emailed me and said they’d sent it Priority Mail signature required— a slight problem because unlike a regular envelope which would just drop through the mail slot on the weekend if it arrived on a Saturday there would be no one to sign for it which means it would go to the post office. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of trying to chase it down, but again— $8k deposit.
I got more suspicious again when I got a text message saying I needed to go to the post office and get the envelope. I told them I hadn’t gotten the notification yet and wouldn’t leave until I did— I have a life. They were adamant and didn’t like that I refused. They said maybe I didn’t want the gig— I told them maybe they should find someone else and I would just pickup the check on Monday and write RETURN TO SENDER on it.
So why— why where they so adamant that I pick up this check?
They backed down and said they wanted me on the project and it would be OK to wait until Monday. So I still expected something crazy here but I got the check in my hand and sure enough, it was made out to me and it was $8k— it looked like a legit check.
I texted them and said I got the check— they asked if I could send them a pic so that their boss would calm down that it had arrived safely.
AH- that checked.
I’ve worked on many projects for committees and that usually entails levels of approval— maybe this is why they were so nervous.
Check in hand, it looked fine. Legit bank. Account and Routing number looked like it all worked.
But then they made their mistake;
“When you deposit the check please send me a pic of the deposit slip.”
Nope, there it is.
Do you see it? Does it add up for you now? Remember each step had flags and something that was unusual but then they would counter with something that just about made sense. And the money was good enough to cut them some slack.
The reason I even post this, the reason I’m getting into such clear details is this; Today a job that is going to pay me $24k is certainly an important one, but it’s not one that if I lose it my entire world is shattered. Not so when I was first starting out— not so for someone fresh out of art school with student debt to pay off, so I want to get as specific as I can so that if it happens to YOU then you’ll get out of the web before it’s too late.
Back to the ah-ha moment— there is absolutely no reason for them to see MY deposit slip, if you write a check and send it to someone and they cash it your bank will have a record of that transaction for you almost immediately. The ONLY reason someone might want to see the deposit slip is that it has MY bank account numbers on it.
And there it is.
That also made me look more closely at the check, now keeping in mind that this was a multiple-client gig it’s not unusual for a corporate check to be signed by a name you don’t recognize. I’m sad to admit it but it was only at this point I first looked at the check closely and realized the check was from a Landscaping Business out of Southern California, but the return address on the envelope was an address in New Jersey, and the postmark was Chicago. More flags.
Now what to do with this check? Shred it? Send it back? Deposit it and see where it goes?
Find out next tomorrow.