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@Northern_Rob
Just sticking this out there for any opinion as to wether I'm exposing myself to potential fraud.
I regard myself as pretty astute in these matters and used to deal with scams daily in my previous career. However I'm out of the game now so might miss a few tricks so wondered what people thought of the risk of the following scenario.
I do freelance photography and get a good amount of very small paying jobs and I do alright. So I took a gig a few weeks back (Not yet done) to shoot a bench in a church garden in the city of London. Story is pretty much this:
American girl got engaged on the bench but always wishes she had a nice photo of it and the rose bush and red phone box behind, so her friend for an anniversary gift wants the bench dressed all romantically and beautifully shot and emailed to her in the states to print, print frame and give.
I agree to do this for a fair price and she's said we should pull the trigger on her next pay day. I'd fire up the Fixeh, do my shoot then she Paypals the fee. I then send the processed shots when that's clear.
So I'm just waiting on the word. And I've shot for clients in the US before, they need a job completing in London but organise it from there and payment has always been fine.
But now comes this. A very similar ad went up overnight, (Written quite differently and no mention of America) but this time it's a bench in Hyde Park. Otherwise the key story points are identical. Bench, sister got engaged, photograph, present....
Now a statistician could probably argue quite beautifully that this is far more likely than most people could imagine but I think it smells slightly. But if it's dodgy I don't get what I have to lose.
There's no item for me to have stolen just my time, and I can't think that I have any cash at risk via paypal. And I guess that's the big question for me, is there a paypal scam hiding in this that I just can't see ?
I know the creative/artsy community are frequently targeted by fraud due to the perception they're a soft target but I can't decide wether this is a stunning example of logical chance or an attempt to rob me.
Who got the knowledge ?
Oops, forgot to say I'm fully conversant with overpayment scams. You know "I send you £300 because (insert bullshit here) you then take your fee and forward the rest to this account...."