PSA: Don't get scammed.

A few days ago I received a rather random text message from a guy who named himself “Fredrick Leonard”. Fredrick said he was hearing impaired and asked me if I could do web a web design for him. I said Yes because why not? I’ve been a web dev/designer for 12 years now and I have given my number to so many people that I can’t remember everyone over the years.

The message started off with

“Good Day, I’m Fredrick am hearing impaired.i wanna know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you accept credit cards”

I replied that I can and I do. I informed him that I also do PayPal.

He then went to ask me to check out a site but he wants something more perfect than this. Not a problem, he sends me to http://agroamerica.com/ and informs me the job details as follows:

“i have a small scale business which I want to turn into large scale business now it located in TN and the company is based on importing and exporting Agricultural products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me?”

I said absolutely, the conversation then moved to discussing the cost of the total project, including hosting, managing and the general up and running stages of the project which is normal in my experiences.

…He then informs me that he has a “private” project consultant, that I must get the text content from…

The total quote came up to $1,000 and he said there was a $100 tip if I did a “favor” for him…

He stated that He was going to do a purchase through my credit card merchant of $6,100. $3,000 as a deposit and the favor was that I must transfer $3,000 to his “private consultant”.

This didn’t fly for me, I immediately phoned my lawyer and asked him how everything sounded and even he had said it was a red flag. Lawyer said that If it was truly a real client that it would be wise to ask for a photocopy of his drivers license that matched the credit card as a verification. I informed Fredrick that I cannot go through with this as it is a liability on my part, and that I would require a photocopy of his drivers license/ID as verification and he hasn’t responded….

Moral of the story is, Don’t buy in to these scams. I almost fell right in and I felt I should post my journey as a warning to other developers and designers.

Epic visual tool

Epson 5030UB 2D/3D 1080p 3LCD Projector Submitted November 24, 2015 at 02:24PM by NopeNotAnthony http://ift.tt/1R3RNpB