A scam involving people trying to con money out of wedding photographers has come to my attention. I've heard of this before but this is the first time someone has actually approached me. It involves the couple over paying you for a wedding deposit and then asking for a refund of the difference.
The basics are an email from couple, usually foreign and written in poor English who are getting married very soon and really desperately want you to do their wedding photographs.
They will pay whatever you ask for because you are the best. When you quote for the wedding and ask for a deposit they send you what looks like a foreign bankers draft for considerably more than you asked for. When you contact them to tell them of their mistake they ask you to refund the difference.
After a short while they say the wedding has had to be cancelled and ask for a full refund.
I know a lot of photographers have been approached but most tend to get suspicious quite soon. I was tempted to see how this scam worked out but finally got fed up after repeated attempts to get the couples contact details.
If in doubt I would ask for the non refundable full cost of the wedding up front due to the short notice and demand checkable contact details including a land line telephone number in this country.
You can read more examples here:
http://www.davidphenry.com/NigerianScammers.htm
http://www.swpp.co.uk/blog/item/8
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