Scam Targets Web Designers Developers

I am a web designer in Napa, CA. I am sharing this so as to warn other un-suspecting web designers and developers – beware.  Don’t waste your time as I did in back and forth conversations.  This person is trying to scam you. And if they are, you can forward the email to me@rescam.org and that should waste some of their time. Go to rescam.org to learn more. I learned about it from one of the comments below.

It starts with an email

Good Day, Am Davis Walker .i wanna know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you do you accept credit cards ?? kindly get back to me ASAP so i can send you the job details.
Regards,
Davis Walker.

or in another case ———

Good Day
I’m Jackson,i would love to know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you do you accept credit cards ?? kindly get back to me ASAP so i can send you the job details.
Regards
Jackson Moore.

and yet another added here after having written this post ——

Greeting’s i am Ralph Tyler i need to know if you can handle website design for a new company and i also need to know if you accept credit cards as form of payment because i have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located here in the state i want you to understand am going through illness situation at the moment because of my diagnosis of lungs cancer which i will be under going surgery soon and and the company is based on CINNABON CLASSIC ROLL,MINIBON,CINNASWEETIES,CINNABON STIX,CINNAPACK,SIGNATURE BLENDED BEVERAGES,SIGNATURE BEVERAGES OVER ICE,E.T.C so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me?

If you reply in the affirmative, then something like this

Thanks for your swift response

Here is the job details

i have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now and am hearing impaired that why am using via Email to contact you and my business is located in Philippines but i like all your work that while i chose to use you for this project and the company is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?. so i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible .http://www.agroamerica.com…. the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate based on the site i gave you to check out, the estimate should include hosting and i want the same page as the site i gave you to check out and i have a private project consultant, he has the text content and the logos for the site.
Note:

1. I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you to
check excluding videos and blogs.
2. I want only English language
3. I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as tomssfarsmsproduce.com
4. you will be updating the site for me.
5. i will be proving the images, logos and content for the site.
6. i want the site up and running before ending of next month.
7. My budget is $4000 to $6000

8. No Shopping Cart

9. it will have Photo Galler, Members-Only, Contact Forms

Kindly get back to me with:
(1) an estimate
(2) your cell phone number
(3) And will like to know if you are the owner ??

Regards
Davis Walker

or in the second case this ———

Thanks for your prompt response, I do appreciate that so much.. I need a responsive website for my business let me know the right time to send over my project details?.

Best regards.

followed by this ———

Here is the project detail.. I need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible
.http://www.hunland.com ….. the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate based on the site i gave you to check out, the estimate should include hosting and i want the same page as the site i gave you to check out and i have a private project consultant, he has the text content and the logos for the site.
Note:

1. I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you to check excluding videos and blogs.
2. I want only English language
3. I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as
uniquepreciousfarm.com
4. you will be updating the site for me.
5. i will be proving the images, logos and content for the site.

Kindly get back to me with:
(1) an estimate
(2) your cell phone number
(3) And will like to know if you are the owner ??

Go over the details and get back to me so we can hop on a call on Monday.
Regards
.

Now – did you notice the similarities.

How about that last part starting with, “Kindly get back to me with:” which is not only worded but formatted exactly the same”.

I went down the road with one of these guys, “Jackson” for about 5 weeks which ended when I refused to do his “favor” (details below).  The second one from “Davis” arrived in my email inbox the next week – I clearly assume not aware that I just finished playing this game.

So what is the scam?

Jackson first wanted to send messages to me via text service, I don’t know why specifically but we went back and forth about it.  Maybe it is harder to track or something. Either way I don’t text (that’s another story). I told him I needed to talk with him.  Communication was once a day because my emails from him would come around 4am, which one of several factors that was odd, along with his accent when I actually spoke to him.  He sounded like he was Haiti or similar, although when I asked him he said he was living in Richmond, VA running a farm with one parent born American and the other Mexican.  Not likely, but I thought maybe it was because the guy had some strange medical problem that I could not understand.  You see he would mention a few times he had to get off the phone to take his medicine.  His story, extracted over time, was that he was a farmer in Richmond and had had a farming accident and the farm was most important to him and his family and he wanted to get this website up to help his farm.

I believe part of the strategy was to elicit compassion, and for me to invest a fair amount of time and effort over a long period of time talking with him, so that when he asked for his favor, that I would more willing to help out.

And by the way, I had sent him an invoice within the first week via Freshbooks (that is an affiliate link), which he at first said he did not know how to pay and he needed me to send him an invoice from Quickbooks, not that he knew I even used quickbooks, but there were a number of other strange requests like this.  Anyways we went back and forth with that as well, he said he could not seem to pay me via my freshbooks link – which is a joke because it is about as easy as it comes.  And if you are thinking why did I not cut this off right away, it is easier said than done.  You now have a perspective I did not at the time.

The Favor

Eventually he simply emailed,

Alright i need a slight favor from you?. regarding my text content, images and logos.

As usual, not that much detail.

Eventually,

I want you to add the fund of my consultant on the invoice you sent to me..cause he is the one that has the Text content, images and logos with him.

after a few more back and forths:

here is my consultant email address Graphicselite@yahoo.com
i would email you my credit card info shortly.

and then

Have you reached out to my consultant?..if so let me know what you both concluded..kindly get back to me asap.

and then

Sound good am ready to make the payment for the initial deposit that is why i need a slight favor from you?.

I kept telling him I needed to know more clearly what the deal was, why he wanted me to pay his content person

Hi David,

Is not what you are thinking I just need this slight favor due to my current health status and this project meant everything to me the farm is my life.

Regards.

then

You know I told you that i will be providing the text content, images and logos. and you will be working a long with my consultant on this project.. my consultant has all the text content, images and logos with him & he insisted that i need to pay him before he release the document to whoever i hired for the development of the project.

and

You both would be working together on the project and am just recovering from an accident I had on the farm.

Yea he doesn’t accept credit card nor PayPal it was so annoying when I heard that
I should have get it done without you knowing about this.

so I emailed this content person curious to see what their deal was, asked for their name, website, where they worked from, etc.  They responded:

Hello,

Nice meeting you Mr David, Jackson told us about you,
we are looking forward working with you on this project
Actually we don’t accept credit card nor PayPal we accept cash deposit, ACH & wire transfer.

When I finally said, no, I will not do that, he responded with

Can you refer me to someone who can help me out on my project?.

Which is smart on his part, maybe I know someone who would, why not get me to refer someone.  But I said I did not nor would I recommend anyone do that. And I was still unclear that he was asking to find a replacement for me, because his communication was so poor, so I asked him to clarify what help and why.  He responded

Someone that would help me out with development of my website and that will help me with the favor.. With more humanity that understand the meaning sympathy.

There you have the sympathy card.  We went back and forth a few times and the final email message I received from him was

At this point my health is more important since no one understand me.

Then one week after I had that email from, I received an email from “Davis Walker”, emailing me,

Good Day, Am Davis Walker .i wanna know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you do you accept credit cards ?? kindly get back to me ASAP so i can send you the job details.
Regards,
Davis Walker.

It was late at night and although I recognized being asked a similar and unusual request before (did I take credit cards) I responded simply, “yes and yes”.  And then I received the next email which is at the start of this article.  The similarities just hit me and I went back and read and compared the emails from the two people and thought – wow!  That was a good scam attempt, much more sophisticated than most I am approached with, I should share this.

Essentially I figure he wanted to get me to pay his “content person” with cash.  I do not know if he intended to try to get me to pay this person in cash before he ran a card to me and then just would not pay me, or if he would pay me with a credit card, then have me pay this person in cash, and then he would recover his money on his credit card, which is certainly possible with a credit card – although not for me if I were to pay cash.

Or as shared by someone else who read this,

Thanks for sharing this. The likely scam was that they are using a stolen credit card that they hoped would go through on your side and you would then pay his cohort in cash and, ultimately, be out the money that you sent over to them when the credit card company caught up with the theft. As the merchant who accepted the bogus credit card, you would see the payment cancelled and be out the money you sent to them legitimately. This is now called “spear phishing” in which the potential victim is cultivated on a 1-to-1 basis instead of the mass emailings that used to go out from Nigerian princes.

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