Wedding And Fashion Photo Scam

Photographers with websites will inevitably get an e-mail about doing a wedding or fashion photography, with a huge paycheck.  All very vague at first but they really want to make sure that you take credit cards.  The credit card part of this is very important — and you can’t accept credit cards with some vendors like PayPal as their fraud detection is evidently too good.  In short, this is a credit card scam.

Some time after expressing interest to their pretty good terms you’ll be asked if you can pay the caterer or the models or the DJ on their behalf because those vendors don’t accept credit cards and the person making the request isn’t local or is in the hospital.  RED FLAG.

Time is of the essence, the caterer needs a deposit right away, etc.

So they “pay you” via credit card including the extra that needs to go to the other vendor.  Plus maybe a little more as a “thank you” for wiring the money to the other vendor.  So you wire real money to the vendor.

The kicker is that the person contacting you is using a stolen credit card.  When the real card holder disputes the credit card charge and it’s reversed, you’re out that money and the money you paid the vendor.

Why do I bring this up?  Why now?  Well, there’s this e-mail I got from lusano654@gmail.com stringing me along about a fashion shoot.  “Loves my portfolio,” etc.  Nowhere in my portfolio is anything with a human in it, so….  Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Update before posting: Evidently Google is onto this person and has suspended their account.  I usually try to string them along for a couple of days, notifying the Sheriff’s office of any credit card data I receive.