A little cautious - odd contact

[jmichaelc]

Ok.....i received a direct inquiry from OneWed online service

regarding services for a 1-28-06 wedding. I simply replied via e-mail

sending them our package options with pricing. Here is their

response......

 

"Dear Jammey,

Thanks for the reply.I indeed acknowledged your mail.

I will be very glad with your service for the weding on 1-28-2006 ,so

i want the Package C - $2955.00 . so let me have your full name and

address so that full payment can be send to you in advance via

Cashier check/Money Order. so please e mail me the following

informations for the payment.

NAME;

ADDRESS;

PHONE NUMBER;

Thanks and I will be looking forward to hearing back from you soonest.

 

Regards

Braim"

 

 

What do you all think my next step of action should be? I'm a little

cautious because it is unusual for someone to want to pay in full

without even verbally discussing the wedding day.

[austinphoto]

As long as they don't ask for your bank account number, and you have plenty of time to deposit the money and wait till it clears I would go for it and thank them very much for paying in full. Good luck!

[kari douma]

Watch out if they "accidently" pay you more and want you to refund you the difference. This is a scam talked about many times of photo.net.

[kari douma]

Let them know you need to recieve payment for EXACT AMOUNT by Jan 10 with a signed contract or you can not do the wedding. If the check is not the EXACT amount, you will not do the wedding. (I think it takes about 10 days for a cashiers check to clear, but ask your bank)

[conraderb]

Jammey - good luck, but I'll bet you $50 this is a fake.

 

I received a similar email one year ago from a 'British celebrity', and I followed up with it, and a few weeks later, I received a very official-looking money order for $5000 instead of $1000. Of course, I was supposed to send the difference via Western Union! And of course, the envelope came from teh czech republic, and I was supposed to send the difference to someone in the czech republic.

 

Of course, I called the bank who issued the money order - bank of frankonia or something like that - and they said that it was a completely false money order - it had five digits as the tracking #, and the real money orders have six digits.

 

of course, I played along by telling my contact that I deposited the money, and then gave him a fake western union tracking #. he had the nerve to call me in the middle of the day - he spoke terrible english. I explained to him that the joke was on HIM - and had a good laugh with him, and then he hung up, humiliated.

 

Good luck. Seriously, if you shoot this wedding, come down to DC and it's lunch on me.

 

Conrad

[think27]

100% Absolutely a scam. Very common one at that. Always watch for communications mentioning Cashier checks and strange english...

 

"I will be very glad with your service" for instance or mispelling weding and lower case "i". Oh yeah and "soonest".

 

Don't go there Jammey. They send a check for more than the amount and ask you to send the balance back to them or to another vendor. Then the check bounces. Some even initially clear and then bounce.

[jmichaelc]

OK....i am Curious as to where this will go, so below was my reply. I will never accept a deposit without a completed contract (which requires all personal customer contact info)and a completed wedding planner that has location contact info etc....

 

"Find attached a copy of our contract, along with a wedding planner that outlines the events of your day. Full payment at this time is not necessary. Once the attached contract and Wedding Planner is fully completed, please return them to the following address along with exactly 1/3 of the total amount. For package C, the total amount would be $3228.00 (this includes tax). A 1/3 of this for the deposit to be submitted with the completed contract and wedding planner would then be $1076.00. The remaining 2/3 is due upon receiving your finished Album catalog of images.

 

 

 

NOTE: For personal checks, money orders, or cashierﾒs checks, we must receive payment 10 working days in advance prior to your wedding day. Since your wedding day is set for 1-28-06, we would need the completed contract, wedding planner, and payment returned no latter than 1-16-06. Since we are facing a time issue, you will need to send it registered, to be signed for in the mail. There is a scam going on right now Braim that Wedding Photographers are susceptible too, where payment is made via a fraud cashiers check for more than what is required and then the customer wants the over balance sent to a different bank. By the time folks realize itﾒs a fraud, itﾒs too late. For this reason, we will not accept the ﾓDepositﾔ check if it is made out to be more than what is required. If this case, the required deposit amount is $1076.00.

 

 

 

 

 

Address for Contract, Wedding Planner and required deposit payment of $1076.00 :

 

XXXXXX "

 

 

What do you all think? Do you think i will hear back from them? I'll let you know what takes place. Thanks again for all the advice.

[tony_cabrera]

Don't even waste your time. I've received this same style email a few times last year. It's a scam. They do it to all wedding vendors, even DJ's and florists.

 

The latest one I receieved said "his daughter" was getting married at his mansion and gave me an address that was for a big downtown hotel.

[kerry_walker]

I can guarantee you this one is a scam. I recognize the name. It has been going around a lot. I am always leary when I get a request from someone who is either out of the country or whose English is that poor. However, I would like to recount a scam contact (I thought at first it was) that I got last year. It was from a bride in England (and I am in LA) but I called the number she left anyway (it was in GA). Turns out both the bride and groom were in the USAF and she was based in England and he was in GA. The wedding was in LA (about 5 mile from my house) and I had a ball. It was the best wedding I shot last year, in terms of enjoyment. I would avoid this one but sometimes the contacts from out of the country are legit.

[KenPapai]

100% chance you are being scammed. Look at similar threads (I posted one) from last year. SCAM.

[neil_.]

Sounds like a scam.

I recieved a large cashiers cheque for an item I was trying to sell. The item I

was selling was $500.00, but they sent $5,500.00. I was to foward the extra

$5000.00 to the U.K. via Western Union even though the cheque was drawn

from a Florida Bank.

There is one thing to keep in mind, you need more than 10 days to clear the

cheque. My bank was willing to cash what I recieved, but they told me since it

was out of country(I live in Canada) it could take a month to be returned if it

was fake. Needless to say, I did not cash it.

[nstock]

Make sure the check, even a cashiers check, be drawn on a US bank with a US address.

Make sure they first give you a phone number and an address that you can call and verify before any business transactions take place.

 

It is a scam (or surely sounds like one).

Do not give them any information before they give you THEIR information.

 

No one likes to lose business, but this has that gut feeling where you might just lose your shirt and never get the business anyway.

[jpb]

you are wasting your time... this is obviously a scam and your are tying to beat a con, which is a sure way to get conned in the end. If you received the cashiers check ten days before the wedding, it will come with too much money and you will refund the difference, meanwhile your bank will clear the check on more faith because it is a cashiers check and not a personal check, then about two weeks later, the bank will call too tell you they have revoked the funds because the check indeed turned out to be a fake... so you risk your time, your money, and your bank account... not to mention all the time you could have been using to cultivate actual, legitimate business. JUST IGNORE SUCH SOLICITATIONS or if you feel bad about doing so, just decline politely and get back to your real work at hand.

[stephen hazelton]

The scam: They send you a cashier's check, usually for too much money, and ask you to forward the extra. You take the cashier's check to your bank, and they check with the issuing bank, and they say it's good. You deposit the check. You send the excess money on as requested. Three weeks or a month later, the check bounces, and your bank docks your account that much. (Because it is actually a counterfeit check, not a "hot" check, it takes longer to bounce). Meanwhile, the real money that you forwarded on is gone forever.

 

Telltale clues: Buying something with no regard for what it is. (not checking the date, as you mention). The Cashier's check. The idea of buying services sight unseen from someone on the other side of the planet and sending cash (and too much of it) in advance.

 

On some of these scams, you can cut-and-paste part of the scam letter in Google and come up with other identical scam letters for different purchases. The scammers don't sit and type all this out each time, you know.

[KenPapai]

Ignore what people say about "sounds like a scam."<p>

THIS IS A SCAM! Jammey. Anyone who had read this forum the past years knows that. SCAM. One more time -- you and everyone else need to hear it. There is Zero validity in the approach being made to you except to rip you off. People (fools) still fall for these because they really believe in the tooth fairy; the Nigerians are still scamming one and all.

[think27]

What Ken said...

[Jerry_]

...if the check is real, this should be good as well:<div></div>

[fotografz]

Forgetaboutit.

 

Or have them wire transfer the money to a local bank other than yours, and see if that bank

will give you the cash ... not.

 

Forgetaboutit.

[jmichaelc]

I got another odd reply back this moring from that person and i simply declined the inquiry. I hope this has been a refresher to everyone (i know it has been for me at least) to be cautious of such scams. Thanks!

[ron_adams1]

Jammey,

I recently received an email out of France with basically the same request. I received two money orders and a blank signed check on a bank in Ireland. I am currently checking out the validity of the check. I recommend turning it over to the proper authority. That's what I'm going to do. There appears to be many photographer scams going on.

[tom_luongo1]

<a href="http://www.419eater.com/html/419faq.htm">FAQ on 419 scams <u>here</u></a>