TexasCHLforum.com

I had not gotten one in quite a while, and then I had two in my inbox today:

SQLGeek wrote:Curious, how does the scam work?

In my case, I was contacted (several times) via email by someone claiming to be handicapped (or in the hospital), so everything would have to be handled by phone; but they wanted to know if I could build a website for them, and if I would take a credit card payment for the work.

It was some years ago, and I hadn’t been in business very long the very first time this happened and hadn’t heard of this scam before - so I was naturally willing to carry the discussion further. So I sent them a reply and said that in principle I was willing, but I needed more details about what kind of site, etc., but said that unless there were special circumstances, they would be looking at rough estimate of $2,500 for the work. The person got back to me and said that they were also employing a copywriter to write the site content. They wanted to know if I would accept a credit card payment of $3,500, and pay the copywriter the $1,000 difference by check, since that person was not set up to accept credit card payments. Ding, ding, ding!! No thank you!!!!! The thing is, I still hadn’t twigged to it being a scam. I just thought that I wan’t going to be responsible for paying a content writer unless that writer was working for me; so I sent a reply saying that the terms were not acceptable and I was turning down the job.

It wasn’t until after it was all over and I was talking about it with my wife that it began to sink in that I’d almost been a victim of a scam. After that one happened, I must have gotten 8 or 10 more contacts like that one over the next couple of years.....a couple of times they came by text message to my cellphone rather than by email. I just trashed the messages/emails and blocked the senders. After a while they stopped.

In my case, it was website design, but the scam would work equally well for anyone providing a consulting type service in which a 3rd party, like the content writer in my case, would be employed.

Scott B. wrote:Recently got a batch of those stupid "I have X disability, or live in X state, need firearms training, do you accept credit cards?" emails.

Most of us know it's bogus, but if you're a new instructor and hadn't run across this yet - here's your sign.

I used to get those all the time for website design.