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Catering Scam Attempt?

medic92

medic92

is one Smokin' Farker
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I received a text message today from a number in California wanting to have us cater a birthday party for 50 on December 19th. No big deal, we get calls/emails from out of town all the time for people wanting to set up a party for when they're visiting. I was a little put off by him using text instead of calling or emailing, but it's not unheard of.
We agreed on a menu and pricing, and then he said he needed a favor. He said he had a DJ lined up but the DJ didn't have a credit card processor so he wanted to pay us for the DJ ($2500) and then just pick up the cash from us once the credit card cleared. Warning bells are going off big time now.
I asked for the name of the DJ and who the party was for. He said the DJ was James. I asked if James had a last name. He said Andrew. Now I know all the local DJ's in this area and there's no James, no Andrew, and no James Andrew. He said the birthday party was for his father, McCarthy Adams. No McCarthy Adams in this area that I know of.
I told him I wasn't in the least bit comfortable with that idea, and he offered an extra $50 for my troubles. I clarified and told him I wasn't interested in doing the catering either. He tried a couple more times and I finally told him I'm not interested in cooking a bunch of food that would never be picked up just so he could use a stolen credit card. Never heard back.

Has anyone else had something similar happen to them?
 
That's definitely a scam. Good call on telling him to piss off. Next time, don't even be nice about it.

My guess is he's trying to use you to cash out a stolen credit card.

In other news - if I could make $2500 every weekend playing music at a birthday party I'd quit my day job!!
 
I get them all the time, I don't pay for your vendor who does not take credit cards PERIOD. I've even followed the scam through when I have tome to the point where they give me the CC number and then I send that number to the CC company fraud division and let them know it's been stolen.
 
HBMTN said:
I get them all the time, I don't pay for your vendor who does not take credit cards PERIOD. I've even followed the scam through when I have tome to the point where they give me the CC number and then I send that number to the CC company fraud division and let them know it's been stolen.
Click to expand...

That's what I should have done. If I'm on the road and have time to kill, I'll string telemarketers along just for the entertainment value. Lately I've gotten calls from people claiming I filled out an online form for some kind of pain relief stuff and I can keep them on the line for over an hour sometimes.
 
So glad you were one of the wise ones that was suspect from the start. Unfortunately, there are many that fall for it. All you can do is spread the word and hope that it goes down the line.
 
medic92 said:
That's what I should have done. If I'm on the road and have time to kill, I'll string telemarketers along just for the entertainment value. Lately I've gotten calls from people claiming I filled out an online form for some kind of pain relief stuff and I can keep them on the line for over an hour sometimes.
Click to expand...

I used to have a telemarketer lady call me once a week trying to sell me porno movies. After a few weeks, I got tired of it so I asked her if she liked to watch them and were they good movies. She said yes that she loved watching them and they were great. I asked her what she liked most in the movies and she hung up on me. A week later she called back and I told her she hung up on me last week, she said "well you were talking dirty to me" to which I said no ma'am I wasn't, you were trying to sell me movies and I just asked you what you liked about them and if you can't answer that then I can't buy them. She hasn't called back since LOL
 
HBMTN said:
I used to have a telemarketer lady call me once a week trying to sell me porno movies. After a few weeks, I got tired of it so I asked her if she liked to watch them and were they good movies. She said yes that she loved watching them and they were great. I asked her what she liked most in the movies and she hung up on me. A week later she called back and I told her she hung up on me last week, she said "well you were talking dirty to me" to which I said no ma'am I wasn't, you were trying to sell me movies and I just asked you what you liked about them and if you can't answer that then I can't buy them. She hasn't called back since LOL
Click to expand...

OMG lol :laugh:
 
HBMTN said:
I used to have a telemarketer lady call me once a week trying to sell me porno movies. After a few weeks, I got tired of it so I asked her if she liked to watch them and were they good movies. She said yes that she loved watching them and they were great. I asked her what she liked most in the movies and she hung up on me. A week later she called back and I told her she hung up on me last week, she said "well you were talking dirty to me" to which I said no ma'am I wasn't, you were trying to sell me movies and I just asked you what you liked about them and if you can't answer that then I can't buy them. She hasn't called back since LOL
Click to expand...

Be honest. Don't you miss her just a little bit?
 
I’ve had that call a number of times - last was they wanted to overpay me $4,000 to cover the cost of a tent rental. I said “Not today ISIS” - surprisingly they hung up on me.
 
I received a scam where they wanted to pick up my BBQ and then add 1500 to the bill so they could pay the drivers for picking it up and another 500 for a tip for me. This would have only been a $300 gig to any of my local customers. Definitely some type of scam. This was either a way to cancel the charge and keep the money or some type of laundering scheme. Who knows but I know it was definitely not right.
 
I had almost the exact same scenario happen when I first opened my company. Got a text (saying he was hearing impaired and only wanted to communicate via text) that he wanted roughly $2k of food. Got a quote together and then he sent me a text saying, "Can you do me a favor?" I asked what it was and he wanted to charge an extra $1500 or something like that on the credit card, and have me give that to the guy picking up the food. Some elaborate situation where he was not only hearing impaired but also couldn't walk, so he used a car service for everything. But, of course, the car service didn't accept credit cards so he wanted me to pay the guy picking up all the food in cash with this extra $1500. The jerk even texted me the credit card details...TEXT, no security at all.

I was pretty embarrassed that it went as far as it did before I knew what was going on...red flags were waving and I saw them, but was very excited for a solid bit of business. I never charged the card as by that time I knew something was off, and I also never agreed to pay the "driver" in cash. The guy even had a sob story about this party for his wife who was about to go to hospice...just a total scheme.
 
My wife's architecture firm had a similar scam attempt on them. Email from overseas looking to build a house in the area, not uncommon for them to have out of town or overseas clients. Spent a few days getting details and working up a proposal. The potential "client" then asked to pay via credit card and to send extra so they could pay the surveyor. The "client" was not so politely told to eff-off.

I told her next time they need to get the card info so it can be reported stolen.
 
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