Beware of Scams Targeting Designers

Experienced designers are alert to the new client who wants spec or cheap work: “Can you send me some ideas to look over so I can decide to go ahead?” or “I don’t have much budget right now, but I’ll definitely recommend you.” Only the inexperienced will fall for it, and they soon learn to note the warning signs of a potential rip-off. But what about the new client who has an actual budget and immediately offers to send cash up front? It’s disarming, like the charming “deployed soldier” or “oil-rig engineer” with a handsome profile photo who “really just wants to be a friend” on Instagram or Pinterest. (My wife used to get one or two of these a month when she was active on those platforms: scammers fishing for lonely women with money.) A few years ago, a variation on the theme appeared, targeting designers. Often it started with an innocuous “Are you the graphic designer?” text message or email. This was followed by a more elaborate pitch involving a new business starting up and in need of a logo and a brochure, perhaps a catalog or website. I thought this one had died out because I hadn’t seen one in more than a year, but a recent incident in which a friend was almost taken in alerted me that the scammers are still at work. It started innocently enough: On Fri, Apr 8, 2022, 20:57 Carl Russell wrote: I need help with catalogue and logo design as follows:

1. Company Name: STAMFORD SPAR
2. My website is under constructions which would be registered soon.
3. I Don’t have a logo yet but would need one to be made by you
4. Full text content and all images for the e-brochure will be submitted to you by the project consultant. You
   
   just have to handle the layout.
5. The e-brochure should be 24 in pages (Including front and back cover. I have lot of information already approved. The text and images have also been crosschecked)
6. The size of the e-brochure should be 8.5 X 11.5
7. I want you to add our core values, mission and vision (This information will be provided by the consultant)
8. My budget is not more than $4000
9. I want this delivered in 5-6 weeks to the latest.

It looks somewhat legitimate. The usual advice to watch out for typos and odd grammatical mistakes doesn’t help in this case, because small-business clients, especially if English is a second language, are quite prone to these. In themselves, they’re not a warning sign. The “e-brochure should be 8.5×11.5” is weird, but okay. I have real clients who make similar mistakes. The clue came when my friend sent this in a follow-up email: “Forgot to include a disclaimer. I don’t know this guy and neither does N*** [a smart guy who works at a large university]. He just reached out to N*** for a referral.” What would have followed, if my friend had expressed interest, would have been a pitch to accept a substantial immediate payment so as to get the job started right away. And he’d have soon been in a whole mess of trouble. A few years ago, I got one of these inquiries, which is how I knew that “STAMFORD SPAR” and “Carl Russell” don’t exist and the whole thing was a scam. Typos and grammar aren’t the clues; it’s the wild departures from ordinary business practice that would have followed. The email itself also follows a recognizable pattern:

• An out-of-the-blue approach from someone you’ve never heard of
• a vague creative brief
• a mysterious “consultant” or “manager” who will supply copy and images (and/or money), and
• the huge red flag: “Let me send you a bunch of money right away” at a point in the cycle where no sane business—even a naïve startup—would commit, far less transmit, a chunk of their working capital to a complete stranger.

On its own, any one of these first three might not be a big deal, but in aggregate they are a clear warning. There are common elements to the scam “brief” that show there is a single individual or group involved. It is almost always a “new business,” often involving furniture or some other form of hard goods. The names “VEEHAUS” and “Stamford Spar” seem to show up quite frequently, or the business may not be named initially. If the designer asks for more details or sample product shots, the response is that “These are all with the project consultant, who is not yet done. Can you give me your quote” or similar. On further follow-up, the “business owner” will turn out to be in hospital recovering from an illness and unable to take phone calls or has a disability. The “consultant” or “project manager” will be unable to make payments, but the owner can using online banking. If the designer accepts a payment transfer into their account, it will be for too much and there will be a request to return the excess. You know where this is going: as soon as that transfer is made, the “payment” will disappear, leaving the designer with neither the payment nor the amount of the “returned excess.” An excellent and detailed blog post by Jon Schroeder about the scam, written in late 2019, has over 380 comments by people describing various approaches by the scammers, the names they employed, and other useful details. Since the scammers are still in business and still using their standard modus operandi, I thought it would be a good idea to put the word out so nobody is fooled.