Almost a Victim
Story time, my friends.
As a photographer, I am always trying to challenge myself. I started photography to capture the places I was traveling for work. It quickly turned into something much more than that. It is a passion, and I am always trying to learn more. My wife can attest to the number of YouTube videos I watch trying to spark an idea about what project to try next. This attitude made me nearly fall victim to a well-played scam. Below is the saga.
It all started a few weeks back with the simple email below.
I indeed have a 500px account, and it is set up that I am open to hiring. So, I was intrigued. While fashion and street photography are not what I usually put out, I am open to a challenge and thought it would be a fun gig. A few things should have sent all my senses into overdrive, telling me that this was a fraud.
First, I didn't see this message when I went into my 500px inbox. I don't spend a bunch of time on the site, so I was not sure if that was normal or not.
The second thing I should have noticed was that the email was sent via sendgrid.net. My other job is as a software developer. I use SendGrid as a service to send mass emails. This service can set the return name and address to look legit. I missed that at first and responded to the message that I was interested and would like more information. I got the following message back.
While most of the message seemed, normal there were two lines that made me start to question things a bit.
“It will be greatly appreciated if you accept this offer. I will look forward to having a better service from you.”
I reached out to the model agency he wanted me to work with but also started to begin searching the web for the agency and Andrew himself. Nothing... I sent a response to "Andrew" to let him know that I had in fact reached out to the talent agency but got the following bounce back in response. Now things are getting fishy.
He then began emailing me from a different address, a gmail.com address. I started doing some research and found that on the complex.com Contact Us page there is a section talking about this exact scenario.
“If you are a photographer/model/stylist and have been unexpectedly solicited to work for Complex, please verify the credentials of the hiring individual or company by contacting us or call the number below. ”
— https://www.complex.com/contact
I reached out to complex.com but didn't get a response. I did, however, get a response from the talent agency. It outlined the services that they would provide, and the model's contact cards. When I look at them, I am quite sure that this is a scam. email address @usa.com are certainly not legit.
In my research, I came across a video on All Things Photo where Jim M. Goldstein discusses a scam hitting photographers who are selling prints online. It sounds familiar to what I am seeing. It turns out, it is a derivative of the Nigerian Prince Email Scam.
At this point, I reach out to "Andrew" and tell him that I want to talk to his contact at complex.com to discuss the shoot. I told him I wanted to ensure that my vision for it aligns with what they are looking for. Any client paying for services would find this a normal request. There has been no response. They figured out that I had caught on to what they were doing. The moral of the story here is, be careful when someone reaches out to you. As the video above describes, Jim had a legit client that seemed to be a scam so it can happen but if it seems too good to be true, do you homework. If you have a similar story, I would love to hear about it in the comments.
