#photography scam

[johnnymartyr]

Was I a Victim of a Refund Scam? Or Did I Steal Money From a Grieving Family?

by Johnny Martyr Did I get scammed? Years later, I’m still unsure if I was the victim or the perpetrator. How Photography Refund Scams Work Refund scams are a common threat to working photographers. I see people post about them in professional photography forums and find them in my inbox ever so often. The trick is straightforward. Convince the photographer to accept what seems like a…

Was I a Victim of a Refund Scam? Or Did I Steal Money From a Grieving Family?

[alicooneyuribearchive]

This Wedding Season’s Hottest Trend: Wedding Photographer Scam!

So back in art school, a dear photo teacher of mine told me to list our contact emails on our websites in separate parts cus bots find you and spam you. Today, I learned the extent of not taking that simple piece of advice. 

(gif warning under the cut, as it is my true comedy medium)

A few days ago, I received an email from a seemingly normal person wanting me to take photos for their daughter’s wedding.

It all seemed very normal, albeit with some grammar/spelling issues that befalls any of us at any time. 

This email made sense to me cus a few friends have recently given out my info for potential wedding shoots, and even though I am not a wedding photographer per se, I would be better than most agency photographers and it’s good to have as many veins in your portfolio as possible just in case. 

So I responded politely, assuming the woman messaging me had English as a second language and may not be great with computers, seeing as she had gotten her own name backwards (red flag #1). I did find it weird that she wanted to hold the event address hostage in exchange for the total amount I would charge her. Seemed really weird considering she was ready to hand over credit card info in the previous sentence. Maybe she’s just an overly trusting mother?

I really wanted to know more details before I would be confident enough that this was a good idea. Worst case scenario, I’d have to factor in the cost of shooting a million family members, children, and maybe not knowing the language they were speaking at all times. So I wanted more details. Mrs. Jones managed to evade these questions like some kinda word wizard. Looking back, none of these things seemed like red flags, just a woman desperate to land a photographer with less than a month before the wedding.  

Why was she always asking if things worked for me? Had she not read the previous email of me letting her know it would be? I kept feeling like there was something not right about this whole thing, but I wrote it off as a lack of confidence in my documentary photography skills. 

But she is hearing impaired, I will give her my number so I can maybe get more clear details from her that way.

She texted me back IMMEDIATELY. A middle-aged woman up at 11pm? Not likely. And yet, here she was, again, hounding me for the total cost. I eventually threw a number at her to see if that would move things along. 

Boy, did it ever.

I went to my email and found this little nugget. I read the first line like, “well that’s not my problem,” and , even though the event planner may be genderfluid, probably not in the same sentence? And as I kept reading, it hit me.

The constant asking for a total price, the misspellings, the not wanting to speak to me over the phone, the immediate responses, agreeing to my terms with no questions?!? IT’S A SCAM!

There is some asshole out there that is targeting photographers of any kind that respond to their emails with this really elaborate tale.

Looking back, the address for the wedding was definitely selected at random after I gave away that I was in Tucson. How embarrassing if they thought I meant Tucson, Ohio.

So what, you give me your credit card info, I give you mine? Nice fuckin try. That one hasn’t worked since grade school, my dude...or whoever you are.

It’s doubly hilarious because I am an art school grad in my mid-20s; I HAVE NO MONEY TO TAKE.

So let it be known, if you are a photographer, someone is hunting really niche game this wedding season. Even if all of this is somehow not a scam, this woman makes terrible decisions and therefore has no business with me.

[vael]

Models beware: Cesar Juarez

Models beware. In November of 2014, Eve Victus engaged in a photoshoot with Cesar Juarez, (AKA SyntheticGray) a photographer from New York, New York. It seemed to go well, he was courteous enough and even brought hand-warmers for the cold day. Though I was away playing with my son in the park while most of the shoot was going on, it seemed to both Eve and I that it had gone well and we had done him no disfavor.

Unfortunately, afterwards, we received only one picture despite being told he'd "get right to editing them", and we mentioned that even if he could not edit them, we'd just like to have the raw unedited dump of the set. He made excuses at first for not getting any pictures to us: it was close to Thanksgiving, it was close to Christmas, he at least gave us one; then he had to edit other models' first because those were paid shoots, etc. Finally, last night, I got sick of it and called him on the phone.

He responded to my second call. I said who I was and I was wondering if he could rectify the missing photo situation. He pretended at first to not know me, then silence, a small uttering of anxiety from his end, and he hung up. No response to my follow-up text messages either. He proceeded to block Eve from every social media site he could, and made himself private.

I cannot begin to see what his problem was. Cesar originally contacted Eve, we did not contact him. He took a four-hour bus ride to us, waited in a cold park for us, shot in a cold park and seemed friendly, amiable, introverted, a generally nice guy. His one picture looks great, and I even like his work. It's a shame I cannot see more of Eve. Cesar has not once given an inkling of reason behind his decision to ignore her; I'll guess it was because he could, because she is relatively unknown and could not leave negative feedback on his Model Mayhem. Perhaps she did not take off enough clothing. Through his craven actions he has proven he is spineless and someone that, if you are considering working with, you should have an established contract and preferably be close by, as he'll ignore your messages to him. He may also have done it because it was a free shoot, so if yours is free, consider skipping over this photographer. Well, Eve paid for it in wasted time and she even caught a cold.