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I received an email from this guy Mike Browning (mkbrowning87@gmail.com) with a request for
photography at a wedding anniversary. I often get requests for event
photography services, I am a photographer after all. So I reply asking for more information on what he is
after, I sent him a quote.
He then replies
with this:
The price is fine by me and I’m ready to make full payment of the
service now with my credit card so I can be rest assured the date is secured
for the event.
I need you to render me a favor regarding the event planner that
is handling the event for me. The favor is that the event planner is currently
not authorized to accept credit card so I want you to help coordinate his fee
on my card along with your payment.
I will give you my card to charge for your service and the event
planner fee (You will charge your fee then charge an additional €2,550 for the
event planner), As soon as you charge it through and it approves you will
forward it to him so everything can be set for the event.
Reason I’m asking you for the favor is cause I just got out of
Intensive care and currently and My Psychiatrist strongly advice me to
minimize the stress I go through else I might develop severe weakness and
tiredness.
I am willing to offer you an extra €100 as tip for your
assistance, Bear with me I will be authorizing and responsible for all the
charges on my credit card.
Below is the breakdown of the charges you will be running on my
credit card:
Photo-shoot : €300
Event Planner : €2,550
Tip: €100
CC Charges: 3.5%
Regards,
Mike.
What's
impressive about this scam is that he takes the time to contact a business
about legitimate services they offer, versus asking for help from the king of
Nigeria or his sick grandmother. He even they tries to sweeten the offer with a
tip to feed on my greed.
I thought about
playing along, taking the charge, then never going along with the rest of the
scam to the event planner part but the reality is I do have an actual business
to run so instead decided to write a blog post about it. But good attempt Mike
or whatever your real name is.
Comments
Thanks for this post. I am also a photographer and was contacted by the same person.
Though it a little odd and decided to ignore it.
David
I would also like to thank you for this post, I too received an email from the same person.
After pasting the email address into Google your post came up, which confirmed my thoughts that this was an impressive scam.