The golden rule is, if it looks too good to be true, IT IS! Walk away…just walk away.
I have recently seen a rash of scams targeting my models who I have worked with, so I thought I would give you ladies some advice.
Often as not it involves bogus cashier’s checks made out for far more than the agreed amount. Once a scammer sends a check, a victim deposits it in his bank account. The victim thinks the check is good. What happens to the check is that the victim sends the scammer his “change” from the transaction and then later finds out that the original check was declined by the bank. Money orders can also be fake.
In reality, it can take 15 business days for your bank to determine that it is a fake. At this point, your bank will hold you responsible for this check. You will have to pay your own bank back for the full amount. It is not their liability. It is yours.
The overage amount is sometimes to pay a third party such as an MUA etc. who is part of a scam.
It is best not to reply to such emails. That will let them know that your email address is valid and they will then share (or even sell) your email address to other scammers and you will likely get more scams sent to you.
Please do not deposit checks at all. Tear up the checks if they arrive at your home or office. If you are overly concerned about your safety, you may go to a local police.
If you gave them your bank account information or social security number, you are at risk for identity theft.
- Different names; different email addresses
You might notice that some scams have different names, email addresses, or company names, but they do not matter. They are basic templates, but they are same procedure. They ask you to email them. They then ask you for your full contact information, so they could mail you a check prior to a promise they mentioned in the scams such as catalog, runway, and magazine.
- Poor grammar
- No sincere / personal / individualized message
It is a numbers game. If they send out enough messages, a certain number of uninformed people will respond.
- Location status
Why would someone in England contact someone in Indianapolis, IN for a shoot? There are plenty of models in England.
- Asking for a full contact address to mail you a check beforehand
Why would someone hire you sight unseen and offer to pay you up front?
- Using non-legitimate email address such as Yahoo and Gmail
Most legitimate company representatives have legitimate email addresses. A casting agent at Playboy, for instance, will have tomjones@playboy.com. He will not ask you to send mail to tomjones@yahoo.com or tom5876@gmail.com.
If you’ve experienced something similar to this, call the Federal Trade Commission at (877) 438 – 4338 . Additionally, be sure to contact all 3 Credit Bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian) — at least to protect your identity.
If a scammer uses a website (company name) in the scam email, please contact the owner of the website or company customer service to let them know of the scam. Send the full header of the email, so they can do their part in stopping the scammer. Because confirming the scam, usually the business owners that the scammer is using their information is not aware of it. They would be very happy to hear about it, so they can help fight the scammer.
If you or someone you know have been scammed, you can report it to FBI. Their website will warn the public of scams being reported to them. You must have a copy of the email, full header and details of scam.
If you did not get scammed and still want to report a possible scam, you may blog it or report it in scam-related threads like here at MM. You may report scams to Institute of Modeling. DO NOT waste your time in reporting something to the police or the ic3.gov site if you were not a VICTIM of a scam. It will just get tossed out because they get 1000′s of reports and it will take them longer to get to the real issues from people that got scammed.
If you are interested, you may trace the full headers of scam emails to find an IP address where the email is from.
That was ok, we still had a blast!
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