SCAM WARNING for CREATIVES
I talked about this last year— and it’s back. Here’s the email;
Sent via form submission from ANDY T FISH
Name: Jeffrey XXXX
Email: XXXX@gmail.com
Subject: Illustrator for event
Message: Good day,
My name is Jeffrey XXXX, I am an independent academic event organizer and I am hearing impaired, i hope you treat me like any of your other customers and my disability doesn't affect our dealings.
I got your contact details online, I need the service of an artist or illustrator/artist to work on a project for an upcoming children workshop, I'll give you the idea of what I need to be illustrated/drawn and you can get back to me with the price to get it done.
Please get back to me for more details.
Warm regards.
Jeffrey
Okay in case you missed the past last year here’s how I know this is a scam. It’s the disability comment. These people work from a script. Why would a legitimate client even mention the hearing issue— especially when I’m dealing with them solely through email?
They do this to get a sympathetic ear (no pun). Because most of us being decent human beings read this and think “Oh my goodness, this poor person must deal with a lot of mistreatment (even though I can’t think of a single incident where someone was mistreated because they were deaf).
Here’s how it goes from here— they’re asking you for a quote— I’ll give you some insider info— $8k is the goal— they want you to ask for that amount. If you come in lower than that they’ll make up some excuse for you to up your quote. They’re going to FedEx or Overnight the check to you— the check itself will look normal except it will be drawn under a name other than the one you were contacted by.
They’ll text you in a slight panic that the check might have gotten lost, and they’re concerned. When you tell them you got the check they’ll ask you for a pic of the deposit slip so they can be sure the check is where it’s supposed to be.
Where it goes from there I can only speculate because when I took it this far I then brought the check to the local Holden Police Department where I met with a Detective who looked at the check and questioned why I was worried about it. He suggested I should deposit the check.
Undaunted, I went to the Worcester City Police where a Detective looked at the check and said something didn’t seem right and I should check with my bank— a lightbulb went off — I should have thought of this myself. I walked into my bank and into the Managers office where I put the check on his desk. He took one look at it and said it was a fake check. Two seconds was all it took. I’d wasted two hours with Detectives. He told to wait one minute, a woman brought me in a cup of coffee. He took the check with him. Before I was halfway through my coffee he came back in and said the check was definitely bad.
He suggested what would probably happen is once they have the deposit number via that pic they would somehow withdraw funds from my account (not sure how they would do that), OR the second it was deposited they would tell me they needed $1 or $2k back and it would be replaced but the check would bounce and I’d never see the money again.
Regardless, I’ve had fellow artists, students and friends get the same exact email— so I give you this as a warning. If someone reaches out to you with a gig offer and opens with “hopefully you’ll treat me the same” red flags should go off.
