Warning: Craig's list scam on bands!!!!

[reddgeetarzan]

Not sure if this has been discussed, but I'll tell my story anyways.......

A buddy of mine that I play music with was perusing Craig's list and saw an ad for "band wanted" for a wedding. It was an all day thing- 9-5 and some other very strange requests were made- they wanted the band to also find a photographer AND a caterer.......it gets even more strange.

Here is a copy of the email he recieved- I've deleted his name from this to protect his identity (there are some freakin' WEIRD people out there!)

FYI- THIS REALLY MUST BE A SCAM- IT HAS ALL THE TELL TALE SIGNS- I really wanted to get this out there and see if anyone else has run into this??? Being a long time Ebayer, I noticed right off- misspelled words, horrible use of the English language, vague descriptions, even stranger and more vague story lines to go with the "supposed" gig...see for yourself:

here's a response to an ad I found yesterday......Val
----- Original Message ----- From: Matt Le tissier
To: XXXX........(I deleted his email)
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 8:04 PM
Subject: Re: your ad



Hello ,

How are you?..Its good to read from you

I would like to know your price packages for 7 hours from 9:00AM-5:00PM at both the wedding and reception.... can you work for that long?

I also want to you know that i have a wedding planner on ground who will be cordinating the wedding and i made her know about your photography service and she has choose the package:



Moreoso,the wedding venue will be disclosed to you as the date unfolds since the church priest don't want us to disclosed the venue prior to the wedding for some reasons know to them ,so bear with me for sometime.We plan on having the wedding on the 2nd of May...



I should have make this a phone order but i have a network problem in the area where i am with my family and fiance in Hawaii.




i will be willing to pay will via US certified Cashiers Check drawn on a US Bank as deposit payment just to hold the date and the rest payment will be paid in cash on the wedding day.



So get back to me with your payment information and in the following format below if my Payment terms and conditions is acceptable to you.


FULL NAME:
MAILING ADDRESS(no P.O.Box please):
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP CODE:
CELL PHONE:
HOME PHONE:
BEST TIME TO CALL:



B.Rgds !
Matt




BTW- the band is located in OHIO...........this freakin' tool doesn't even know where he's getting married??? Sounds like the preist is involved in some "shaky" business too.......yeah, like he even exists! My buddy got excited about it, like we were gonna fly to Hawaii and do a show! AH HA HA HA HA.........

Share your thoughts on this bizarre scheme.......

 

[fizbin]

Smells like a scam. Is a scam. I just don't know what scammy path he is leading you down. I suppose somewhere he either knocks you out and steals your instruments or asks you for a loan.

 

[reddgeetarzan]

I think they use the old "deposit the money in your account" to get your bank account info or they "deposit way more than you asked for" and ask for a personal check be sent for the difference........only to find out their check was bogus to begin with.

Stinks bad- I've just not seen this before- anyone else seen this???

 

[jawjatek]

Typical phishing scam. They've been trying to scam studios for quite some time; its a natural progression to try to scam bands - as if musicians had any money. LMAO, tell me another one.

 

[Garygtr]

There are so many variations of this scam out there now, it's unreal. My wife answered an ad for a "mystery shopper wanted" and got a similiar response, wanting info on the credit card she would use to make the purchases so they could reimburse her

 

[strat56]

A band I played in got an email very similar to this one.

The guy was in England, planning to come to the USA to get married, wanted to send us a check to cover the band, caterer, phtotgrapher, hall, etc and wanted us to deposit the check and give the extra money to his "wedding planner". LOL,

I was born in the dark but it wasn't last night.

Told him no thanks and gave him no info.

 

[shark_bite]

My favorite: someone found the website of our brass quintet and emailed this:

Dear sr / madam we are member of christian church of stcathrineschoolofnursing

we would like to buy brass jazz band for our quire
and please quote for us the price and freight charges to Entebbe International Airport
Kampala Uganda East Africa

Thanks
mark

 

[DavidG]

[QUOTEHow are you?..Its good to read from you][/QUOTE]

LMAO, that's all I need to "read" to know it's a SCAM.

 

[greggorypeccary]

My favorite: someone found the website of our brass quintet and emailed this:

So how much would it the freight be on a brass band anyways? I assume you'd have to poke some air holes in the shipping carton right?

 

[Phil M]

"Yes, the wedding is on Monday night at the old abandoned warehouse. Please bring lots of cash...parking is expensive down there."

 

[blownirocz]

Yep, definite phishing scam. They begin by trying to get information that most would consider to be fairly "safe" to provide (e.g. name, address, email address, etc.) to gain a bit of trust and rapport.

Later, they'll start asking for more personal things such as bank account numbers that they can deposit money into, and like others have said, they may ask for some of it to be returned for "overpayment".

These scammers have a pretty sophisticated system where all information has some intrinsic value, and it's traded/sold back and forth. If all they can get out of you is name and address, that's still worth something to someone. If they got things like bank account numbers, SSN's, etc., that's worth a whole lot more.

 

[musicman1]

Its the "deposit my bogus down pymt check and then send me your legitimate check back when I cancel the gig'' scheme...you could report it to the authorities but it really wont do any good. They will disappear and are most likely operating out of the country and are untouchable by the Feds.

 

[H.A.]

Actually I think this is the one where they send you the Certified check and shortly thereafter get cold feet and call off the "wedding" and ask you to keep an amount for your trouble and send the balance back to them. Meanwhile the check comes back from your bank as a fake 2 or 3 weeks later and you're screwed.

 

[paul1122]

It must work. People are falling for it all the time.

 

[chrisr777]

I suppose somewhere he either knocks you out and steals your instruments or asks you for a loan.

So he's either a crook or a drummer?

 

[Roy]

You get the same kind of thing when you post something for sale on Craig's list. I always reply with name of the local police chief and the address and phone number to the police station. Then wait a few days for the "did you receive the check" email and tell them your gonna keep there money and the item, Too bad, So sad. I think it has to cost them money to print and mail the bogus checks so I always string them along and try to cost them as much as I can.

 

[SarasotaSlim]

You get the same kind of thing when you post something for sale on Craig's list. I always reply with name of the local police chief and the address and phone number to the police station. Then wait a few days for the "did you receive the check" email and tell them your gonna keep there money and the item, Too bad, So sad. I think it has to cost them money to print and mail the bogus checks so I always string them along and try to cost them as much as I can.

BINGO!

If only we could reel them in to our country. The whole country of Nigeria is in the scam biz - don't they have anything better to do with their time?! I've got a bogus $4000 check from some scammer that needs to be framed. Read THE "GARY WESTBROOK" PARTY SCAM - OCTOBER 24, 2007 here...
http://www.sarasotaslim.com/news.html

I like the idea of sending the "check" to the local police department. Kinda like the Blues Brothers sending the cops to Wrigley Field.

PS. I have a great phone message from "Gary Westbrook" calling me an asshole in poor English when he finally got the hint that I wasn't gonna play his game any more.

 

[Bx3]

Share your thoughts on this bizarre scheme.......

My only thought is how ANYONE for one second could think this horribly written message could be taken as solid. But they throw it out, and eventually hook someone...sad.

 

[Celticdave]

Yep, that's a scam alright! The sad part is that these guys wouldn't be doing it if someone hadn't already fell for it before...

Sad, just sad...