Scams targeting Web Designers

Earlier this week I got a message through a Contractors review site inquiring about web design services. The person sounded like any other inquiry. They mentioned a few things about their business, showed me a few sites that they liked in their industry and wanted to emulate, claimed to be in Texas, and then went even further and said that they had a $6k budget. So I go through the motions of responding, asking questions about what they want...blah, blah, blah.



I ended the reply as I always do stating that I need to speak with them on the phone before I can determine any kind of price.



The next day she ( or who ever they were) responded saying that my proposal sounded great and that they were interested in getting started right away. (I hadn't sent a proposal. I CLEARLY requested phone conversation first). She went on to say that she was in the hospital so a phone conversation would be difficult, but that she had transferred $6k into her CC account and was ready to send a deposit. (Mind you, we haven't discussed any price).



But first, she needed a favor. Her web consultant, the person with the copy and images, wasn't able to receive credit card payments..so she was going to give me her credit card number to manually charge $5k and I was to take $2.4k and make a cash deposit into her consultants account so that we would both have our deposits.

Oh, and for my troubles I could keep an extra $100.



Of course this is the oldest scam on the web. What would have happened had I been stupid is that I would have gotten a temporary approval of the funds, I would have then sent $2.5K to this stranger, and then soon after my bank would tell me that the CC was stolen, fraudulent, or whatever and the funds were denied and I'd be out $2,500 to some scam artist half way around the world.



A few things stood out right away that let me know this was probably not a reputable person from the beginning.

1. They claimed to be in business, but were using a free gmail address. And not even a vanity one.


2. No email signature. No company info.


3. They specifically asked that I respond to the gmail address and not through the website messaging system.


4. They asked if I was the owner.


5. They asked if they could give their credit card over the phone so that I could run it manually.


6. They gave a budget up front in the initial communication. No one does that.


7. They claimed to be from Texas but the grammar, punctuation and rest of the email looked like they were written by a 12 year old kid who was just learning English.


8. They misspelled their own name.


9. It was already an obvious scam, but they really over reached with the extra $100.

I've seen these scams forever, but this is the first time I've seen them in my industry. Also the fact that they paid to have an account on this Contractors site so that they could have access to it's listings is new.



I did contact the site and they had already gotten multiple calls about it and the scammers account was closed.



Just goes to show, they're everywhere so be careful out there.