Whilst many of you will already be aware of
the following scam, there will be many who
are not and it is for the benefit of those
that we are providing this warning.
This scam is generally aimed at photographers
but also at other wedding professionals who
provide high cost / high value services.
The first e-mail you receive will look something
like this:
From: smith
david [mailto:smithdavid1111@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2005 12:05
AM
To:
Subject: wedding ceremony
Hello,
Greatings to you over there in the
name of the most high,with respect,
on behalf of me and my wife Grace
afrter enough looking at your works
on net we see your good looking photographs.i
am happy to invite you to snapshot
at our wedding ceremony which shall
be coiming up in september .
We shall like to know your chearges
and your contact address if we agree
on thre payment.
And will like to know if you can do
the vidieo.
get back to fast pls.
paul.
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If you reply, the follow
up e-mail will look something like this:
Thank you
very much for your reply i ought to
have mailed you back for long but am
very sorry for the late reply.I have
been contacting my friends who are puting
things together for the day to be memoreble
After the successfull negotiation of
the appropriate date for the wedding,Both
the bride and the groom family concluded
that the date shall be 21st of september
200 at Lightbowne Evangelical Church
120 Kenyon Lane Moston Manchester Lancashire
M40 9DF England***
. And the reception shall take palce
at the church premises Note that most
of the invited guest will be coming
from Europe,America and Africa.In which
i will like you to offer your best .I
will like you to tell me your bills
and all your expenses to the venue note
that you are to work for 6 to 7 hours,
with at least 120 copies.hope to hear
from you soon.
regards. |
***(Please
note that the Lightbowne Evangelical Church
will have no knowledge of or connection to
the scammers and that the name of their Church
will have been chosen at random in order to
give the scam some credibility)
There are a number of things about the e-mail
which, on their own ring alarm bells, but
taken together sound like a fire station on
fireworks night.
1)
The first thing to be suspicious of is the
e-mail address: smithdavid1111@yahoo.com
- scammers always use free accounts and
adopt very English (speaking rather than
nationality) sounding names and with 'throw-away'
addresses.
2) You could reasonably expect someone as
very English as *David Smith* to speak English
as a first language. This person doesn't.
3) You'd also expect someone with a hotmail
address of David Smith to sign themselves
off as "David" rather than "paul".
Hotmail is free to everyone after all, so
why would you need to borrow someone else's
account, particularly if you're organising
a wedding?
4) The date is conveniently left incomplete.
5) There is no name of the marrying couple
so you can't check up on them.
This scam invariably involves
sending the photographer a cashiers check
far in excess of the amount agreed for the
wedding photos. The scammer then claims to
have sent too much money by mistake and pleads
for the photographer to return some of the
money in order that the scammer can buy his
bride her dream wedding dress / hire the venue
/ not have to cancel the wedding etc etc.
Of course, since the cashier's cheque is bogus,
any photographer who *refunds* any money to
the scammer is sending their own cash and
will end up poorer for it.
In short, if you get anything out of the ordinary
- do some research. It shouldn't take more
than 5 minutes on Google to confirm your suspicions.
In short - if it sounds too good to be true,
it almost invariably is.
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