Recently, we’ve got two enquiries through our general contact us page for developing a website and to design a logo and a brochure. Even though both these enquiries have noticeable similarities at first glance it didn’t seem like a fake one. So obviously, as we always respond to our enquiries, we did respond to them expressing our interest. Here are the emails we got, the first from a person name “eric arencibia”

First, let’s have a look at their emails

eric arencibia

Apr 30, 2020, 1:17 PM

to me
Thank you, We only established a new restaurant outlet with different name/registration in Texas.

Reservation Page in this sense will be a page where clients/customers can make a table or room reservation for their meal/meeting prior to visiting the restaurant. Also quarterly updates could anytime we have an additional to the menu which needs to be added to the website (of course this should be done once every quarter).

Also, the consultant has the necessary content, logo etc. for the new website and will be in touch as soon as there is a payment/contract agreement. I could have called but traveling around Asia right now and won’t be available for calls until i get back to the states in November (two days to the launch date). Email should do justice and would always try to reply email fast.

Let me know if i can get a price estimate/proposal soon so that we can proceed with we already have a May deadline.Here is my whatapp number to contact me pls text only,+1 3184051834

I was warn by my bank not to use my card on paypal or any other merchant again because they double remit my account twice before and I don’t want to go against my bank warning to me and I wish i can be able to wire the funds to you but am very busy here and don’t have time to do all that so in view of this my account manager can only send check to the United States on my behalf, I tried to persuade him but he said that he is out of options for now.

Let me know if you have a representative in USA who will receive and deposit the check on your behalf. I will need the full name, address and cellphone number of the recipient of the check in United States. Let me know your thought asap

Best Regards,

The second came from a person name “Melissa Barksdale”

Melissa Barksdale
May 6, 2020, 10:15 AM (10 days ago)

Sorry for the late response. I’ll like to know if I got the right contact to a graphic designer. I want you to design for me a logo and an e-brochure for my new company, based on production and sales of organic foods (plant
based food and drinks).

1. Company Name: MELDEEP ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT INC.
2. My website is under constructions which would be registered soon.
3. I Don’t have a logo yet but would need one to be made by you
4. Full text content and all images for the e-brochure will be submitted to
you by the project consultant. You just have to handle the layout.
5. The e-brochure should be 24 in pages (Including front and back cover. I
have lot of information already approved. The text and images have also
been crosschecked)
6. The size of the e-brochure should be 8.5 X 11.5
7. I want you to add our core values, mission and vision (This information
will be provided by the consultant)
8. My budget is not more than $7000
9. I want this delivered in 5-6 weeks to the latest.

My Goals about the project:

MELDEEP ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT INC. is pet project and same time a business avenue for me. I will be 10 years a vegan in June and I hope to launch the business (and unveil the logo with e-brochure then)to my
customers. MELDEEP ESSENTIAL NUTRIENT INC. should be able to provide over 500 plant-derived minerals that can improve the value of foods, liquids, nutritional formulations and cosmiceuticals. That way also
improving value of life.Whoever purchase our products would have a guarantee of good living and relish.

Our uniqueness will be privilege of our 5 locations around Texas and online store. Our products are also 100 percent plant based produce under strict standards from International Federation of Organic Agriculture
Movements (IFOAM). Our brand and style would also stand us out. Other project essentials:

1. I want you to know that this is the first time I will be doing a Logo design so I can only give you little details then you can decide on designs but I want the color to consist of Green, Red and Brown (let me know what you
think about that) with an image of some mixed fruits. I want a very mature and presentable design and my budget for this project is not more than $7000.
2. For logo inspirations you can look at logo from this samples site below:

Kindly get back to me with:

(1) a price estimate/quote :
(2) your cell phone number:
(3) And will like to know if you are the owner ?

Best Regards
Melissa Barksdale

Seems legitimate right? yeah, apart from the budget for this kind of work and how they can work on their website even without the logo, even though it looks little odd it seems legitimate for us too, so we responded with proposals for both of these projects. And after about a couple of days, we got a response.

Thank you, We only established a new restaurant outlet with different name/registration in Texas.

Reservation Page in this sense will be a page where clients/customers can make a table or room reservation for their meal/meeting prior to visiting the restaurant. Also quarterly updates could anytime we have an additional to the menu which needs to be added to the website (of course this should be done once every quarter).

Also, the consultant has the necessary content, logo etc. for the new website and will be in touch as soon as there is a payment/contract agreement. I could have called but traveling around Asia right now and won’t be available for calls until i get back to the states in November (two days to the launch date). Email should do justice and would always try to reply email fast.

Let me know if i can get a price estimate/proposal soon so that we can proceed with we already have a May deadline.Here is my whatapp number to contact me pls text only,+1 3184051834

I was warn by my bank not to use my card on paypal or any other merchant again because they double remit my account twice before and I don’t want to go against my bank warning to me and I wish i can be able to wire the funds to you but am very busy here and don’t have time to do all that so in view of this my account manager can only send check to the United States on my behalf, I tried to persuade him but he said that he is out of options for now.

Let me know if you have a representative in USA who will receive and deposit the check on your behalf. I will need the full name, address and cellphone number of the recipient of the check in United States. Let me know your thought asap

Best Regards,

And here is Melissa’s response

Thank you ,

We are licensed and registered in the United States. I have a consultant that has the necessary content for the e-brochure, logo etc. and will be in touch as soon as there is a payment/contract agreement.

I am unfortunately in Asia right now and won’t be available for calls until i get back to the states God knows when (everything is restricted due to the pandemic). Email should do justice and would always try to reply email fast.

Again e-brochure size would be ANSI Letter 8.5 X 11.5 (215.9 by 279.4 mm).The e-brochure will be printed (not published) and we have another company handling that. The logo will be used on e-brochure and the website only. I want a 4-color/full color/CMYK process color for the logo. Additional information are below:

1. Finished work should be delivered in a PDF format.
2. Presentation pages design for e-brochure should be the same everywhere(pages).

Let me know if i can get a price estimate/proposal soon so that we can proceed with we already have a July deadline. Please have a price quote based on earlier requirement given to you.

Keep safe and protect yourself from the virus.

Regards,

By this time I knew there is something wrong because we sent the proposal with my previous email and she is still asking us for price. So we responded that the proposal was sent with the earlier email.

Sounds good !

After reviewing the price quote, I think we should continue with the next step since we already have a deadline to meet. This email also confirms my readiness to approve your route and also to proceed further.

Please i’d your payment information so that i can issue out your deposit payment in form of check payment mailed and address to your US based individual/company or your partner since that is my only available payment method right now.

1. Full name on check:
2. US Mailing address with Apt/Rm # if needed (No PO Box):
3. Your direct cell phone number :
4. 80% deposit amount due (I can also pay in full):

As informed earlier, the consultant has the necessary content (all) for the design and will be in touch as soon as there is a payment/contract agreement.

I could have called but I am unfortunately in Asia right now and won’t be available for calls until i get back to the states God knows when (everything is restricted due to the pandemic). Email should do justice and would always try to reply email fast.

Please let me know if there is any paperwork to sign and you can send it so that I can sign it electronically.

Stay safe in this uncertain time.

Now if you pay attention to these emails you’ll notice the similarities in both and also the second person has just copied and pasted the same sentence about she has been stuck in Asia into both these emails.

By now we knew these are just scammers trying to scam us. So you may wonder how this scam works, let me explain. If you accept the project and hopefully send a personal contact of someone who is living in USA, then these scammers will send a document that looks like a money order or even a cheque to that address, to your surprise, the amount in that will be higher than what you quoted (Let’s say if your quote is USD 2,000, they will send a money order for USD 2,500) once your contact person got this on their hand they will then demand you to pay that extra USD 500 you got to another account they mention, they will demand you to pay this even before you realize the cheque you got so it will be out of your own pocket. Obviously these money orders or cheques are just bogus and you will never be able to bank it.

These scams seem surprisingly legitimate, why?

• They use a legitimate name for the enquiry
• They send the enquiry through your website so it looks valid
• They will give you some sort of brief about the project they have in hand (in our case these guys have sent us some sort of specification on what they want)
• They sometimes would message you on WhatsApp or SMS (The first guy actually sent us messages on WhatsApp)

How to spot these kinds of scams?

• They propose a budget for the job (It’s highly unlikely for a customer to expose their budget at the RFP stage)
• Their budget is at the higher end for a job they expect you to do (In our case, the person could have get a logo and brochure done under USD 500 if they list the project in a freelancing website yet they mentioned their budget is USD 7,000 which is crazy)
• They act as they trust you and whatever the cost you propose they agree (So what happens to the negotiations, that’s not going to happen with these guys)
• Most of the time, their English is not so great. (It is obvious these are not native English speaking people who try these kinds of things so their emails have a lot of Grammer mistakes)
• They ask whether you are the owner of the company
• They say they are unable to pay online, even using a legitimate payment gateway like PayPal (Who doesn’t use PayPal for a transaction like this?)

Watch Out For These Emails

Keep the above points in mind and never get caught for these kinds of things and just waste your precious time and even your hard-earned money. Scammers are coming us with many creative ways to get you under their net, so its up to you to stay ahead of them when they contact you.

What to do if you’ve been targeted

Unless any money has been stolen from you, the best thing to do is nothing, just ignore the emails and don’t respond.

If you want to inform the scam, or have unfortunately lost any money, you can reach out to

• The Secret Service – Usually Stripe is recommending you to report this to Secret service. The Secret Service is responsible for counterfeiting law violations as well as financial fraud including banking, access device, advance fee fraud and computer fraud, financial document counterfeiting, and money laundering. I had a pretty nice chat on the phone with a Secret Service agent who confirmed how widespread these web design scams are and told me that unless money had changed hands, they weren’t too interested in trying to track anyone down
• FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) – Complaints filed via this website are processed and may be referred to federal, state, local or international law enforcement or regulatory agencies for possible investigation

Finally, you can share this article with others to educate them on this scam and keep them under the safe side.