Scam Email: Joe Thomas

Someone just forwarded me this email. We've reported on the use of the name Stan Thomas in the past. The format of this scam is just the same as we've seen to artists, but the items mentioned this time are non-art items from the person who forwarded me the email. It's worth posting, in case an artist gets one just like this but listing their artwork instead.

Hello,

We would like to inquire if you have in stock or can help us to get the description items below,

1: SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER, 20amps and above.
2: Grundfos SQ Flex 11 SQF -2 Submersible pump (part no 95027335)
3: 180watt or 235watt solar panel.
4: DC-AC POWER INVERTER 1000watts and above and it should be in 12vdc to
220/230/240vac

Also interested in the toners descriptions below

1: HP Q6511A (11A) OEM
2: HP C8543X (43X) OEM
3: HP C9730A (30A) OEM

Please let us know the price of each item listed above. I would also like to know type of credit card that you accepted in making payment when purchased from your company.I really appreciate your time and business.

RELIABLE CONTRACTOR
4875 E La Palma Ave,
Anaheim, CA, 92801
reliablecontractor@albmasterdesign.com
Joe Thomas. 

Scam Email: Dennis Voutila

Notice how the TO field is just a huge undisclosed list and his sob story about losing the web link. This is a new technique for scammers so they can somehow track the personalization of the scam and reference it in future correspondence with the intended victim.

First Email:

From: Dennis Voutila
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Inquiry about your website

The images in your website is so fascinating and so vivacious looking at each piece of work make me know you added so much dedication in making each work come out to life  but unfortunately i lost the weblink but i was able to save your email address am writing you because i need your help to get back to your website so that i can be able to see more of  your work and purchase some for my apartment. I  reside in Victoria Australia hope to read from you soon.
Regards
Dennis

Second Email (now he's getting all warm and fuzzy to reel the victim in):

From: Dennis Voutila [dennisvoutila@yahoo.com.au]
To:
Subject: ....: Inquiry about your website

 Dear Liz
    I keep wondering how much time and effort you devoted into your work to make the following piece a one of a kind and as i can see from the images you sent to me your work as a pleasant and a suiting feeling and am so sure it will bring comfort and happiness into my home and to those that view it. I will be purchasing the following piece listed below

[names of pieces inserted here]

Payment for those piece will be made through UK bank cheque and the  money can be withdraw from my account i will be sending £5000 to cover the cost of the piece and shipping of the artwork i also have some Antique to be shipped from the Cardiff Wales i think it will be better if the shippers picking up the Antique can come pick up the
artwork from you so as to save time and money.
So i would let the shippers know that they will be coming over to your area to pick-up the artwork and have them delivered to me.I will be needing your contact address and phone number to write and send the cheque to you,hope to read from you soon. kindly include the name you want written on cheque
Regards
Dennis

Below is my shipping Address
Dennis Voutila
8/818 Bourke Street, Docklands,
VICTORIA, 3008
AUSTRALIA
Email: dennisvoutila@yahoo.com.au
Phone: +61 3 6401 1000
Fax: +61 3 6801 32 22

Fortunately, it was at this point that the artist googled the name and this blog came up and they knew it was a scam. So no money or art lost this time!

Scam Email: Robin Map

This scam is typical in all it's content but what was newsworthy about it was the artist who forwarded it to me said, "I went on Skype with him (allegedly for him to prove he was real) but he was Nigerian, typing to lots of other people at once, and very shady, and would only deal with cheques and to get his own people to 'ship' the work. Total fraudster! Beware!" They got the scamster on Skype! I am wondering if they can maintain their untraceability that way. I'm sure they've thought that all through but I think it is a scary escalation in the scam world to now be able to SEE what these cockroaches look like!! Yuck. Email this scammer used was robinmap1@yahoo.com.

Hello,

I go through your art work and i really like your creative, due to this i really have the interest in buying this your work, so kindly email me the price of it and the info about the work because i
really like it and also my wife also have an interest in it as well because we saw it together from your web and we want to buy it.

Hope to read from you,

Robin.

Scam Email: Anita James Primoff

We have another report on the scammer using the fake name of Anita Primoff and he finally found my very own email just now. I decided to post a new report to make sure people who are searching on Anita James Primoff find this report in google search results.

The scammer is using a gmail account but I did notice in the full headers the email was routed through wanadoo.fr, which is another service out of France that scammers and spammers in general use. Everything about this email has all the classic signs of a scam - poor formatting, the moving from one country to another, setting up the "story" of why they are using their third-party shipper, asking for the prices when my website already lists the prices, etc.

They say their cashier's check "can be easily cashed" at your local bank but we all know that isn't true.

I'll underscore again. ANY email (and I do mean ANY) that email insist on the use of their 3rd party shipper and where the check they send is for more than what is owed, asking you to forward the difference to the shipper - it is a scam and DO NOT send anything. Don't deposit the check (you can always ask the bank to check out the check without depositing and opening yourself to bounced check fees) and stop all conversation. Let them spend the cost to send you the check and you haven't lost anything - money or artwork.

Even though I do this blog and run a facebook page with the same purpose of exposing them and reducing the number of victims, the scammers still send me scams as much as anyone else. It's a numbers game to them. They don't care. So all we can do is keep posting their emails, fake names and email addresses and keep alerting as many people as possible to this BEFORE they lose anything.

Return-Path: [anjimoff@gmail.com]
Subject: artworks purchase
From: Anita James Primoff [anjimoff@gmail.com]

Good day to you.

I am so excited that I came across of your work on internet search,I am interested in purchasing these creative artworks from you.....................

[name of art pieces inserted here]

Let me know their various prices.and how much discounts are you going to give?I will be happy to have these selected artworks hung in our new home in South Africa.As well,I want you to take out the shipping cost.I have been in touch with a shipping firm that will be shipping other house decoratives.

We are traveling from our Seattle home to our new apartment as soon as possible.On Paying for the artworks,I will be glad to pay you with a Money Order or Cashier`s check in US funds that can be easily cashed at your local bank,please let me know on how to proceed for the payment of the creative artworks.

I will await your advise on how to proceed.Have a wonderful day.

Take care,
Anita James

Scam Email: Anita Primoff

Just received this email from an artist:

HI just received this one on my art website. Guess it is a scam. Darn Sales would have been nice. Just posting this to warn other artist. Thanks Kathleen

Good day to you.

I am so excited that I came across of your work on internet search,I am interested in purchasing these creative artworks from you.....................

Yellowstone:Meadow Light Morning,Spring Edge
plein aire oil paintings:2,5 & 11

Let me know their various prices.and how much discounts are you going to give?I will be happy to have these selected artworks hung in our new home in South Africa.As well,I want you to take out the shipping cost.I have been in touch with a shipping firm that will be shipping other house decoratives.

We are traveling from our Seattle home to our new apartment as soon as possible.On Paying for the artworks,I will be glad to pay you with a Money Order or Cashier`s check in US funds that can be easily cashed at your local bank,please let me know on how to proceed for the payment of the creative artworks.

I will await your advise on how to proceed.Have a wonderful day.

Take care,
Anita Primoff

Bummer!!!

Scam Email: Deg Store

This scam email doesn't have a fake person's name but a fake store name. All the rest of it is the typical stuff we see in these scam emails.

Hello,

This mail is to make inquiry on the below question.

1- Do you carry oversea? (though i already know of a freight forwarder that will pick my packages from you,since they ship lesser than any other courier and they are so effective in shipping my goods to me here in Victoria , Australia is estimated to be 3-4days) I have used there service in the past and it was splendid.

2- Do you accept credit card for payment (my U.S.A Master and Visa card to be precise)?

Kindly let me know your comments on these, before i send the items i am interested in purchasing from you.

Best Regards.
President
Deg Store Australia
297 Diagonal Road Oaklands Park
5046 Adelaide Australia
+61390169230

Sent by: degstore@blumail.org 

Scam Email: Lisa Wague

Okay, here is an interesting twist. The scammers are having a hard time figuring out who they sent the email to when someone replies and asks a question. They send out so many hundreds of thousands of these, they don't have a good way to track who the person is who is replying to them. And they care because this person is moving along the next step of the scam by replying. I have personally sent replies to scammers removing all references of who I was and asking which pieces were they interested in... knowing they could never match it up if they were a scammer (and a real collector would remember a piece they saw and liked).

So the scammers have been trying some variations. Recently - last week and this week, I've noticed their scam emails now ask the potential victim to please state their website url in their reply. Funny. I guess that is not working so well, or the below email is just another strategy to try and establish a way to know where one of their emails have been sent. They are now embedding the target website url directly in their email, thinking if the artist replies, the url is right there and the scammer can continue what would seem like a "personal" conversation.

Also, we've reported on Vivian and Yvonne Wague in the past. Looks like this scammer is staying with a sister theme.

From: Lisa Wague [lisawague@yahoo.com]
Date: February 23, 2011 8:09:58 PM EST
Subject: Purchase Info.

Hello Bob,
Hope this message found you well; I am so excited to discover these nice artworks on your link (bob's website url was inserted here) and I will like you to get back with more details if they are still available for purchase including their prices;
"Edge of the Old Forest"
"Liberation"
Your urgent reply would be appreciated.
Best Regards,
Lisa.

Scam Email: Nelson Brown

This scammer is the same one who just sent out the same scam under the fake name of Andrew Roundy. He is sending from a compromised server so I guess he's going to send a bunch of them out until the owners of the server at gnax.net realize their servers are compromised.

Return-path: [more@monkey.xyzdns.net]
Delivery-date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:30:41 -0600
Received: from monkey.xyzdns.net ([216.180.243.170]:42811)
Subject: Order Enquiry.
From: Nelson Brown [mobilestores1477@gmail.com]
Reply-To: mobilestores1477@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:30:33 -0500

Hello .

I will like to place some items in you store and i will like to know if you ship to Slovenia and accept credit card as method of payment Waiting for your reply regarding this request .

Thanks
Nelson Brown

Scam Email: Andrew Roundy

Here is a scam email I received this morning. Looks like the scam was sent from a hijacked server. Notice how all the emails are either made up or belong to someone else - except for the Reply-To address, which is where your reply goes when you write back. That is the throw-away gmail account the scammer is using to communicate with their victims. The rest of this email is pretty standard stuff - they withhold most of the scam until a person replies to them. But the formatting is off, as usual.

Return-path: [more@monkey.xyzdns.net]
Delivery-date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 03:50:43 -0600
Received: from monkey.xyzdns.net
Subject: Order Enquiry
From: Andrew Roundy [Roundyandrew@andrew.com]
Reply-To: roundyandrew2@gmail.com

My name is Andrew,I want to place an order in your store,I will like
to know if you ship to Philippines.Do you accept credit card?.Get back to me
with your website/price list.I will await your prompt response
Best Regards,
Andrew

Scam Email: Eliot Graham

Here is a typical scam email under the name of Eliot Graham. It's almost always the super horrible grammar, spelling and formatting that gives them away.

Return-Path: [mackerelrodrigo@gmail.com]
From: Eliot Graham [graham_eliot@yahoo.co.uk]
Subject: Inquiry about your sculpture

Hello
I saw a preview of your sculpture work via a friend of mine  she reside in Amsterdam Netherland she a send me a link to a site that previewed your work so am writing in request to know if you can direct me to your own personal website where i can view more of your work and see if we can reach an agreement in purchasing some of
your sculpture i would like to have them displayed in my new home, my friend also tell me  about  your creative approach to you work and it's creativeness i do not reside
in the Netherlands which as been a major concern to me on our to purchase your piece can you send me images or website to your new work.
Thanks
Eliot

Scam Email: John Smith

This scammer was not going to get my attention being I'm an artist and don't sell the below items. He didn't take the time to target his email per the audience he was mailing to. He probably just sent out a bunch and hopes anyone who sells these items will fall for the scam. There is no Applied Supply (again, what's with the period after the company name and their name at the end of the email??) in Berkeley and I googled the address and a UPS store is located there. So this scammer just didn't try too hard.

Return-path: [which12buy@which12buy.com]
From: John Smith [appliedsupplyinc@gmail.com]
Reply-To: appliedsupplyinc@gmail.com
Subject: Quote request

Hello,
We would like to inquire if you have in stock or can help us to get the description items below,

1: SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER, 20amps and above.
2: Grundfos SQ Flex 11 SQF -2 Submersible pump
3: 180watt or 235watt solar panel.

Also interested in the toners descriptions below

1: HP Q6511A (11A) OEM
2: HP C8543X (43X) OEM
3: HP C9730A (30A) OEM

Please let us know the price of each item listed above. I would also like to know type of credit card that you accepted in making payment when purchasing from your company.I really appreciate your time and business.

APPLIED SUPPLY.
2512 Telegraph Avenue,
Berkeley, CA, 94704
appliedsupplyinc@gmail.com

John Smith.

Scam Email: Elaine Jackson

I love your site. My husband got an email from a woman who wanted to by 4 paintings off his website. She lives in San Francisco & was moving to South Africa soon. She also had her own shipping company. How do they part you from your money? An unknown artists' work is almost worthless especially in another country, so they wouldn't be selling the art. My husband Gene, told them he would need cash in hand before he started the project & it would be at least 3 weeks. He never got another email. There info is as follows: Elaine Jackson-[mailto:elainejackson.05@gmail.com] The shipping company: Home Front Freight and Logistics Service Logistics Ltd. No actual email address. Yes, they used Logitics twice in the name. I look forward to a reply. Wendy

Yes, this is the classic scam setup. How they separate you from your money is once you agree to the buy, they will send you MORE than the amount due. Much more. And tell you, for whatever reason, they need that extra amount they sent you forwarded to the shipping company - by YOU. You deposit their check and then forward the difference to the shipping company. The check is fake. There is no shipping company - you are only sending your GOOD cash back to the scammers, who sit at the other end of Western Union. That is what they are after - not the art. In fact, often they never receive the art that has been shipped because the address is made up. They are after that cash, which can often be anywhere from $500 to over $5000 sometimes.

Good you caught this one before anything bad happened.

Scam Email: Wayne Dickson

This was a good one I received this morning, in that it contained almost NO clues as to the level of scamminess. And I can usually spot one of these a mile away.

I looked up the name and in fact a Wayne Dickson does exist in texas and is part of a company but not the company referenced in the yahoo email address. Then I looked up the company name and there IS a company by that name - in Texas! But their email addresses on their website are referenced differently. Still does not put it out of the realm of possibilities. The spelling and formatting wasn't recognizably horrible. Okay, "...and am from Texas" is pretty horrible grammar but not unthinkable from a normal person. No reference to a third-party shipper or living out of the country. And the source IP number didn't tell me anything because the email was sent via yahoo mail. Just not enough clues. The *only* recognizable clue in this email is the "period" after the name at the end of the email - which oddly seems present in almost all scam emails, like they all use the same templated software that puts a period there or something. Normal people do not put a period after their name at the end of an email. Also - and this is more a grey area, normal people would not ask what my final price was for a painting when the prices are clearly listed on my website. They might ask if I offer discounts, but I don't think they would ask, "what's your final price".

Return-Path: [compassgroupco@yahoo.com]
From: Wayne Dickson [compassgroupco@yahoo.com]
Subject: [name of piece]

Hello there,

My name is Wayne Dickson and am from Texas. Was going through your works and love this piece.What's your final price for it and am really interested in purchasing the piece.

Thanks and i await your response.

Wayne.

But these are not entirely strong blazing clues, so I fell back on an old technique I have used in the past. You will notice in the above email that the only place he references the name of the painting is in the subject line. So I took the email, removed all the identifying TO information, changed the Subject line to "RE: Inquiry" and pasted his email in one of my throw-away (or I don't care) hotmail accounts. I'm counting on my knowledge that scammers send out hundreds of thousands of these and he won't know what original email he sent it to nor will he remember the name of the piece he put in the subject line. Here is what my reply (from my throwaway hotmail account) looked like:

To compassgroupco@yahoo.com
Subject Re: Inquiry

Hi Wayne,

Which piece were you interested in?

Katie

> Hello there,

> My name is Wayne Dickson and am from Texas. Was going through your works and love this piece.What's your final price for it and am really interested in purchasing the
> piece.

> Thanks and i await your response.

> Wayne.

I even put in those ">" to make it look like a reply. I forgot to add what would have been a great personal "inside" joke to me and sign my email, Katie. (with a period) but I forgot to.

If it is NOT a scammer (and really, I'm thinking it IS a scammer), they will immediately remember the name of the painting that interest them, what my website/real name is, etc. Real collectors know these details when they've found a piece they want.

My guess is he will never reply OR thinking he's got a dumb one on the line, he will reply and ask for a list of my top pieces - but given I've moved this reply to hotmail, he's not even going to know which website this was originally targeted to. So I'm back to, I don't think he's going to reply at all. There are too many other emails he has sent where someone will think he's for real and begin the process of the transaction that will turn out to be a fake.

I'll update this again if he writes back, but I'm not expecting him to.

Scam Email: Jordana Jack

Here is an email I just received from an artist. Nothing unusual about this except it was a little odd the scammer wrote three times to get a list of items. Usually the scammer, playing a huge numbers game, don't linger where there are no responses from potential victims.

Hi

I've got a new one for you!

someone calling themselves "Jordana Jack" but also "Mrs Jordana" who emailed me in both English and French, using the email address jordanajack@yahoo.com .

Quite a weird one, because they sent three emails asking for lists of my work (which are easily viewable on my website) before asking for two prints - "which they would use their own shipper for". Amusing because it would cost me a few euros to post these in a tube!

Keep up the good work

David

Scam Email: Kurt Amelles

Here is an email I received from an artist this morning:

Kathleen,
I got an art scam email today and your site was a help. Looks like a variation with a new address involved. The email did not seem right to me so I checked the headers and researched it out and came across your site -Stop Art Scams. Its upsetting that these people prey on artists- who have made a career scraping away an existence for their art. Whoever this is I regard them as pond scum.
Thanks for your efforts,
Holly

Sender: mackerelrodrigo@gmail.com
From: Kurt Amelles [kurtamelles@yahoo.es]
Subject: Interested in your work

HelloI
 saw a preview of your work via a friend of mine Nancy Welsh she reside
in New Jersey she a send me a link to a site that previewed your work so
 am writing in request to know if you can direct me to your own personal
 website where i can view more of your work and see if we can reach an
agreement in purchasing some of it.    I am aconstruction
engineer by profession in Madrid Spain am going to be displaying your
work in both my office and resident my friend also tell me  about  your
creative approach to you work and it's creativeness i do not reside in
the England which as been a major concern to me on our to purchase your
piece can you send me images or website to your new work.ThanksKurt

This is a pretty typical "first email" in the scam process. This particular scammer took no effort to format his email properly and it didn't really make sense that someone (just a made up name) sent a link that showed the work but at the end he is asking for images or the website.

Fortunately, this artist followed her instinct to google the guy's name and of course, we've reported on this before.