various scams via email that are targeting photographers
Photographers are more and more becoming the target for scammers and con artists. They come in all kinds of ways. Really, it’s the Wild West out there!
Here is an example that crops up regularly, where a domain with important keywords are offered.
The best advice I can give here, is that you do your homework first and find out who actually owns the domain name!
The most prevalent scam is where the photographer is asked if they are available for a date … and they just want to throw money at you and book you, without even finding out details.
The scamming method here is that they want to book the photographer for a certain date, and then pay via bank guaranteed check or via credit card. The scam comes into play in that they over-pay, and then ask for a refund of that portion of the money. The bank guaranteed check of course is fake, or the credit card they used is stolen. And the end result is that the photographer who is naive enough to fall for this, is out of pocket by whatever amount they refunded to the scammers.
One of the things that reveal them, is the phrasing. For example, if they say “your city”, then it is 100% guaranteed to be a scam. Other vague descriptions like that should also start the alarm bells.
Here are some other examples …
