A note to fellow Event Industry Vendors:
In the past 2 weeks, Merry Me has been targeted by two different email scam attempts and we would like to share some of the details to help avoid any of our fellow vendors falling victim to such attempts.
The two emails we received were from Jessica Farrell and Gregory Davis, both requesting our services to plan their upcoming weddings….both of which are only just a few short weeks away and are being planned from overseas.
Jessica Farrell’s first email reads:
From: Jessica Farrell
Hello, How are you doing? Thriving!!!
My name is Jessica Farrell , from Enfield in middlesex UK (England ).. We will be coming to IL after my shopping trip with my Husband David Rodin who's French by nature to start his new work with the Coca-cola Co. in Chicago . And just before then we will be getting married on the 27th of June , 2009. We need a good wedding planner to take care of our wedding both reception and ceremony. We require the best for the best memories for we & our children in future and as a matter of fact we have budgeted 25000$ for this special event.
Also, the ceremony and reception event will be taking place in a location and we are expecting at most 50 guests on the day of our occassion because most of our families in Europe and in the United Kingdom will be present for the occassion.
Also, we would like you to know the reception and ceremony will be taking place @ 1 location which the ceremony event would be in a garden location or outdoor while the reception takes place indoors, we are still about to make reservation though but we are making progress with that.
Please let us know if you're able to help.
Sincerely, Jess & David
We responded with several questions to this first email, and started dialog with Jessica. She responded to most of our questions, and in detail…..this was starting to look like a very promising opportunity for another event on our calendar for the year. After being prompted to learn more about her and her future husband, she had offered a fabulous story of how they had met when she was tending to her sick grandmother and other very creative details. However, we were very skeptical through out the entire email correspondence. It wasn’t until Cher decided to Google Jessica Farrell’s name was it realized that she has hit several vendors through out the entire United States, and not just in the wedding industry. Abruptly, we put a stop to the correspondence and thankfully did not ever take this as far as receiving any funds or deposits.
The second email we received was from Gregory Davis, his first email read:
From: Gregory Davis gregdaveis7@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:50:23 +0800
Hello,My Name is Mr Gregory Davis i need an experienced wedding planner whowill handle my wedding and arrange the reception dinner for a group ofpeople who will be attending the wedding ceremony.The wedding is expected to hold on the 11th of July 2009 and 50 to 70guests are expected to attend. As i do not know what the guests mightchoose for their meals and drinks, i will make a prepayment as initialdeposit for this booking via credit card once availability isconfirmed by you.All checks and balances will be made with you on 15thof June which is the final day of the booking, You are to arrange fora a venue for the wedding a place for the reception ,Videography,Music Entertainment,Photography,cake and flowers.If there is any these items that is beyond your capability, you let usknow so that another company can handle it. Get back to me with yourresponse as we don't have much time with us so that we can process ouraccommodation within the region more convenient for you and us.
At this point, we were a bit more sensitive to this type of email, and assumed immediately that it was yet another scam. Googling once again the senders name, the results came back with “scam” written all over it. Again we abruptly responded to the sender with threats of turning them into the authorities.
How do these scams work?
As with most email scams, the potential client/contact is located outside of the states and is requesting services (planning, photography, ect..). With very little dialog, the potential client offers to send a very sizeable deposit to retain the services you provide. When you receive the deposit it is usually even larger then agreed upon. From this point, the hope is you deposit their check. Once the check is deposited the next request is for you to send the additional funds they had sent you to another vendor, usually in another country and most likely Canada. During this time, the funds are deposited and available in your account….but the funds they had sent you were fraudulent, either a stolen or counterfeit check, money order or even treasury check. It will take up to 21 days or more for the bank to realize that the funds are unavailable or even fraudulent….and when they do, they will withdraw it back out of your account. In the meantime, you have already sent a sizeable amount of funds to another vendor requested by the scammer (and in the end, IS the scammer). You are out money, they are rolling in the money…and essentially, you unknowingly laundered a fraudulent check.
How to protect yourself?
1. Be aware of any out of town requests for your services.
2. Ask for a phone conversation prior to signing contracts.
3. Ask for SS# or NI# (National Insurance number, Europe’s version of SS#) and tell your potential client that you do a credit check on any clients outside of your immediate area.
Offer to have the potential client send the funds and a signed contract to your attorney’s office, where all of your contracts normally are sent to. (even though it may not, if you are suspicious, this is a quick way to see if they respond, most scammers really don’t want to deal with a lawyers office)
4. Google is your friend! There are many sites out there that offer information from other victims, or almost victims, from these scammer’s names and all of their aliases.
5. Check out: http://www.scamvictimsunited.com/
Thankfully, we were not a victim to this scam; however, too much of our valuable time was spent working with this potential client. Hopefully, our time and energy will save you a bit of time in return, and ultimately, keep you from being scammed.
Cheers!
Merry Me Staff
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