Premier Furniture

I also got an email from this guy and managed to find this report. Thanks for sharing this scam.

Here is the info from his email.

SENT FROM: [email protected]

“Hello, I’m William and I’ll like to know if you can handle Brochure and Logo Design for my company Kindly get to i can send you the full details to your?D”

Scams

had a similar experince with that email address. I am so happy the internet gives us these sites to check out possible spammers/scammers

Victim Location 81650

Type of a scam Employment

I was contacted by someone ("William") saying they needed a graphic design project completed: a logo and brochure for their new business Premier Furniture. And if they liked my work I would become their permanent graphic designer and could meet when he got back from a business trip. He contacted me via text message and immediately sent examples of the logo and brochure he wanted done. He said he was working with a project consultant on all the text and images he wanted in the brochure and they would release all of that to me to design the brochure. I asked if he had a email that we could correspond through to keep all information in one spot. He provided me with [email protected] but continued to text me.

I asked if he was local and he said Fort Collins and I asked where he got my information and he said yellobook.com. When I first looked it up (stupidly through the link he provided), it seemed like a semi-legit job search engine so I told him I work hourly but could send him a project estimate and if all was well I would send over a contract. (I looked up yellobook.com again weeks later and it said the domain was for sale). I sent him the project estimate via email. He seemed rushed in the beginning of our correspondence, texting me "hello?", "??", "are you there?" if I didn’t respond right away, but then would take days to respond to me after I sent the estimate. I text him to tell him I had sent the estimate and he wanted my email address so that he could look it up? Even after sending the estimate via email, he continued to text me instead of replying via email. After getting the estimate he said he would make a deposit, even though we had not discussed it or finished discussing the project details.

I said I wanted to set up a call to go over the logistics of the project. He responded with "what name on the credit card reader or machine you do make use in running transactions and the rate of the tax charges on it"….I said "lets set up a call tomorrow" and he said "Okay, what you credit card processor name". I told him I use PayPal but he seemed very defiant on getting me payment even though we hadn’t discussed the full project details or payment details.

He then responded with a long text saying he needed me to do a "favor for him" because he was "detained" at the hospital and would be undergoing surgery and had lung cancer. He said he had trouble sending the consultant money for the job and wanted me to send him, "William", an invoice for $7000.00 in which $2000 would be my upfront payment for the project and then I would forward $4,900 to pay the consultant and could keep the remainding $100 as an "errand fee". Obviously this was a huge red flag (on top of many red flags) and I told him I was not comfortable doing that. He then immediately switched gears and wanted me to sign up for an intuit quicklook merchant account (and sent a link) so that he could pay me through that. I said no, I use PayPal (and didn’t click the link). He said he has been hacked through PayPal and didn’t want to use it so send him the name of the credit card processor (which I had already told him I don’t use for the third time). I said I use PayPal or a check by mail. He said send me your address and I said no, we can discuss further on our call tomorrow.

I called him for our meeting and could hardly understand him, there was a lot of noise in the background (cars honking even though he was supposed to be in the hospital?). I had to keep asking him to repeat himself and he said he would send a message and hung up. He then texted me the same thing about the $7000 and me forwarding $4900 to the project consultant…I responded with "I already told you no" and he said "ok". End of conversation and now I will be blocking his number.