Do I have "Idiot" written on my forehead?

[Rob]

Got an email (not from anyone on this forum - I hope). Not a direct quote but the jist of it is as follows....

"I want you to build for me a website. I want it to look like this. And I want you to include in your price cost of hosting."

After I sent him the quote (not including hosting but included an estimate of what hosting would be paid directly to the host)....

"Ok. Sounds good. I'll send you $3350. You can keep $350 and send $3000 to my graphic designer for the content and logo. Ok?"

My reply. "Um, no. That is NOT how I do business, but thank you for asking."


Sound familiar to anyone?

[BaconFries]

I think you may have just had a bogus or a scam request. Did the email not provide a telephone number so you could check (without calling) first to check its location?. Reading between the lines it looks like you may have been a target of a phishing scam, with what you have written about the recieving of money and then returning to a third party (graphic designer it's usually a member of royalty) via your bank account!. I would ignore this and if genuine they will get back to you.

[crispy68]

I agree with bacon. This is a scam. I work in the financial sector and anytime someone 'overpays' what you asked for and then asks you to return the money or pay someone else it's a scam. I've seen it many times with slight variations. Over here the common scam is the Dr. Pepper car wrap. Same thing, they will pay you to wrap your car, they send you a large check with a majority of it to pay the company that will wrap your car. You send the money to them and then you're left holding the bag as the check comes back bad.

[Rob]

Obviously this was a scam. 2 things bother me though:
1 - it seemed legit until he hit me with the overpayment and send the balance to the other guy
2 - how dumb do I look?
Hashtag #WasteOfTime

[ColinM]

Interesting story Rob.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. You couldn't have known with the initial enquiry.