Slightly Off Center

Here's a new one: a Nigerian prince scam email, entirely in French! Writer claims to be a childless Belgian widow and former VP of a gold-mining firm, dying of brain cancer and wanting her personal fortune to go to someone who will donate it to charities in aid of West Africa.

Bonsoir je suis Monique Odile Morel de nationalité Belge, ancienne vice-présidente et chef de la direction de SEMAFO (Société d'Exploitation Minière de l'Afrique de l'Ouest). Je vous contacte sur ce forum parce que je désire faire une chose très importante. En effet, je souffre d'un cancer du cerveau qui dure depuis plusieurs années et très récemment les tests médicaux effectués ont malheureusement révélé que je n'ai plus vraiment longtemps à vivre parce que le mal qui me ronge est en phase terminale. Face à cette terrible et douloureuse situation, j'ai décidé de faire don de tout ce que je possède, car je suis veuve depuis quelques années et malheureusement, je n'ai jamais eu la chance d'avoir un enfant. Durant ma carrière de chef d'exploitation de mines, j'ai eu à effectuer des trafics d'or et actuellement, je dispose d'une importante somme de (465 000 euros) qui se trouve sur un compte numéroté et bloqué domicilié dans une banque d'affaires basée en Afrique de L'Ouest précisément à Ouagadougou au Burkina Faso. Je souhaite de tout cœur, vous léguez cette somme afin que vous puissiez en disposer pour financer des projets d'appui et d'aide aux personnes en difficultés ou soutenir des œuvres de charité. En conséquence, si vous vous en sentez capable, faites-le-moi savoir. Veuillez me répondre sur mon adresse privée : [redacted]

Um, couldn't she just donate it, like, directly to said charities?

Non. Just non. But it was fun trying to decipher the letter without use of Google Translate.

Got two identical copies of this in my inbox this morning. Don't know that it's a scam? Though that first paragraph reads really suspicious. At the very least, it's a mass website scrape and spam campaign. I clicked through the link, and there's a website. Based in Sweden.

I do know that I'm not interested. Packing and shipping a platypus dessert plate for international shipping nearly broke me. Sculpture? Fuggageddaboudit.

We actually own two houses, the one in Oregon where we live, and Denise's family home in Wisconsin, which she inherited when her mom died. My brother and his wife live there, pay a nominal rent for tax purposes, and maintain the place so we don't have to deal with it.

But this means it's a rare week when we don't get at least one or two contacts from speculative realtors and house flippers. Most of them masquerade as personal letters or greeting cards, with faux-handwriting font and messages like:

Hi, I'm Jimmy from WeBuyHouses.wtf! I'm interested in purchasing your property at [redacted]. I'm willing to make a cash offer, and will buy the house as is; you won't need to make any repairs. If you are interested, please contact me at WeBuyHouses.wtf or call phone number (not toll-free). I look forward to hearing from you!

And then there are these guys. The "here's a check, don't you want it?" type.

This one is really leaning into looking official, almost governmental. The IRS-style font on 2024, with check boxes: Compliance, Legal, Documentation, Other. Plus the "Documentation" box on the right, with weight, value, tariff statement, and a very scary warning from the US Postal code about penalties for stealing or misdelivering mail. Which apply to any mail, from bulk flyers to Aunt Emily's Christmas card. They want you to think, Am I expecting a check from the government?

Inside, of course, is the same pitch as all the others, perhaps worded a bit more formally. Eh, they both go straight into the recycling, torn into as many pieces as my level of annoyance that day dictates.

Got a call from the credit union this afternoon, asking to confirm the amount on a check someone had brought in to cash. Didn't recognize the name--Steven Count? Counts?--asked which account, because Denise and I are joint on each other's checking, plus we have a Money Market account.

He read me the last four digits of the account--my primary--so I asked for the check number. Turned out it was one I'd written that morning for just over $2000, to pay my credit card bill. (I'd bought a ton of clay, and also ordered some online printing for Clay Fest and Clayfolk.) Kept him on speaker while I walked out to my mailbox. Flag was still up, but sure enough, the envelope was missing.

He said it looked like the payee line had been altered, and that the guy had scrammed as soon as he said he needed to call me to confirm the amount--made some excuse about his girlfriend out in the parking lot needing him. So they didn't have him in hand, but I think they've got a camera on their entry, and he's going to refer this to their fraud department. Asked if I wanted them to hold the check for me, but I said to just send me a scan and pass it on to enforcement. At least, since they have the check in hand, I don't have to stop payment. But I'm gonna have to start taking bills down River Road to a secure mailbox. And maybe see about online payment, though at least one of my bills tacks on a surcharge for that.

But in the meantime, I'm kinda shook, and very grateful to the Oregon Community Credit Union employee who smelt something fishy, and followed through.

Two new emails in the inbox this morning, both business-related. The first was from someone offering me a 5000-name contact list, purporting to be everyone planning to attend (or registered to attend? Wasn't clear.) the Anacortes Arts Festival this weekend. Suitable for pre-show publicity or post-show follow-up.

It's a scam, of course. They scrape the internet for names, phone numbers and email addresses of anyone who lives within a reasonable drive of the event, package them into a nice Excel file, then download the artists' contact info from the show's website, and try to sell it to them. I first experienced this with Ceramic Showcase in, oh, 2018, so did a little research. Apparently, trade shows were the first to be targeted--an online article talked about a medical exposition where the list offered was indeed doctors and nurses, harvested from various hospital directories in the tri-state area. None of them were actually known to be attending the event.

Well, now it's spread to art fairs. OPA dealt with it by taking their membership list off of the publicly accessible part of their website. Anacortes can't really do that, as we need our artist contact information available for legitimate customer inquiries. I suggested they at least send out a message warning of the scam. It'd be a shame if less experienced artists got taken in.

The other email was not a scam; I just don't think I'll be doing it. A potter and gallery owner in Coupeville asked it he could drop by my booth at the end of the show to purchase some work, wholesale, to sell in his gallery. He has a small but quality list of regional artists, including three I'm familiar with, two fairly famous, the third a newcomer I'd met (and bought a mug from) at Edmonds.

I've done this before, actually--the first or second year I'd done the show, a local gift shop came by and bought about $500 worth of work--cash--turning a pretty good show into an excellent one. Steve offered to pay cash as well, so I wouldn't be taking a potentially suspect check home with me. I thought hard about it, called him this morning to talk it through. It turns out the two famous potters are both in the process of retiring, so his shelves are getting kinda bare. He's very impressed with my work, knows he could sell it, and would like to have it on a ongoing basis.

Why didn't I get opportunities like this when I was young and hungry?

The thing is... I don't need another account. I'd already been turning down consignment offers before the pandemic. Wholesale is better--they're buying it outright, not paying only when it sells--but it's so far away. Right now I have a wholesale gallery in Olympia, that makes a couple of orders a year, big enough to make it worth my while to drive up with pots. Coupeville is several hours, and a ferry ride, further north. I could pack pots and ship them, but I don't generally do that in quantity. Oh sure, I ship special orders all the time, but it's three or four pieces, maybe ten pounds. I don't really have the skills to pack forty pounds of pottery and safely ship them away.

And ultimately, I don't want to. I'm doing more than fine with my current mix of shows, stores, galleries and Market. I've even got money put away for retirement. I'd kinda like to slow down a little, not ramp things up.

We're going to meet in Anacortes, just to socialize. But I'm not going to wholesale to him, even on a one-time basis. I've got a show in Silverton later this month, and Market in between. I need the inventory.

Just got this in my inbox:

It looks like you've misspelled the word "Committment" on your website. I thought you would like to know :). Silly mistakes can ruin your site's credibility. I've used a tool called [redacted] in the past to keep mistakes off of my website.

Oh noes! A typo! How will my credibility survive!

The link actually seems to lead to some sort of web development tool, but the sender's email domain turns out to be a vitamin C cure for strep throat? Whatever, another scam to ignore.

ETA: Did a Google search on the body text, and the first hit was a comment thread at an HVAC site with identical wording, but a different sender's name. So it looks like I'm on the ground floor of a new scam.

 Just got another one of those emails.  I want to give them the benefit of the doubt; not everyone has perfect grammar, after all. This one, though. The subject line was "Urgent Order." There were several indefinite articles missing (a's or an's). And he misspelled his own (purported) name. The last name, as appearing in the email handle and address, began with a "Cs." (It's common in some Hungarian names.)

He introduced himself in the letter as "Joseph Sc[rest-of-name]."

I'd have given that one, anyone can make a typo, but he signed the email "Joseph S."

Yeah, not gonna answer that one.