Another scam targeting spas
May 7th, 2007 • Posted by Bill Bice • Permalink
We've talked before about how scam artists are targeting spas, and here's a nice reminder from Anita Brown:
A spa owner got taken for nearly $2,000 when she received one of these emails. Here's how it worked. The man introduced himself and said he was bringing a group of 23 students to the area for drama and music performances, and they wanted to get spa treatments while they were there, with a budget of $250 per person … She thought it sounded fishy, but the money order arrived, and the bank accepted it. The money was in her account, so she complied with his request for a $2,000 refund. A couple of days later he asked for a full refund, minus $600, saying that the students were in a bus accident.
You can see where this is going. The money order was later discovered to be a phony, and the spa is out $2,000.
It's also wise to be on the lookout for common credit card frauds.
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May 8th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
If it sounds to good to be true it probably is…
May 10th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
There is an epidemic of phony $100 bills, money orders and certified bank checks. It is so prevelent that the banks have a website to tell each other what not accept. Cash, Credit card (with proper I.D .) and electronic checks (guaranteed by the processor) are your best bets.
May 14th, 2007 at 8:02 am
There is also a situation where some one will request an appointment for massage. They explain that because they are coming from out of town they need to cover expenses before they arrive. In one instance all necessary contact and verification information was provided for validation of who they were and where they were from (just in order to avoid this scam). So they seemed completely legitimate. Their payment came in money order, but in gross excess of the treatment fee. This is to say that even after extensive efforts to verify the "who," "where," etc, this person still tried to scam my massage office. I purchased tracking software to track down the source of the email requests. I ultimately determined that the emails were bounced off of email accounts in Europe but originated from Nigeria. With online services, we simply have to be very diligent!
James Smith
Long Island Massage Therapist
May 16th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Recently I have received two emails requesting my beauty services–one was for a wedding in Chicago for a very wealthy young lady and another was for a beauty contest I think in Nigeria. Both these requests seemed very odd since I'm an esthetician in San Francisco, CA. I didn't even bother responding to these emails, I just tagged them spam.