Veep Drinking Game

Impressive Attempted E-Mail Scam

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

David Kenna said…
Hi

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
Anonymous said…

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.