![]() Here’s where the alarm bells start going off:Īm luis i would love to know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you do accept credit cards ? kindly get back to me with your email so i can send you the job details.Īnd it gets even more fishy when the email came through from luis lee The first text read “good day are you available for a website design.” Our business number accepts text messages and our Google My Business listing allows potential customers to text message us. The second web design scam came through a few weeks later – early in the morning as a text message from someone claiming to be Luis Lee at (732) 893-0731. I didn’t suspect this was a web design scam. I emailed with “Kent Walker” a few times until I realized the whole thing was going nowhere – he never responded to basic discovery questions. And since this time, the website has been suspended by HostGator. “Kent” even sent through a sitemap drawing of the website he wanted to make – pretty funny in retrospect. I have a private project consultant, he has the text content with logo along with the image artwork get back to me with an estimate including hosting i will like to know if you are the owner or the manager? Good I just want to open a new Indian Restaurant i need a website for my business to grow the site should be up & running by ending of March i don’t want a shopping cart in my reservation page also i don’t have a domain name yet i prefer: DHARMAKENTRESTAURANT.COM My budget is $5000-10000 for the web design i need you to go through this example link site:, i want the same page as this site i want only English language you will be updating the site for me. It also referenced another website to copy – pretty unusual. The first scam came through from Kent Walter and seemed strange because it mentioned a budget right off the bat (what clients reveal their budget in a blind outreach email) and asked “are you the owner” – strange. Here’s how the web design scams went down The scammers will email you, text you and sometimes even talk on the phone with you – it’s amazing just how easily a scammer can be totally anonymous hiding behind a throw away webmail account and a Google Voice phone number.The exact scams aren’t changing much – a basic web search will turn up dozens of minor variations on the same web design scams that are being recrafted into seo scams, designer scams and other freelancer scams.How long they’ve been going on for – these scams have been going on for a while, and they don’t look to stop.How involved they are – by the time any money were to actually make it back to the scammers, a lot of work and time is devoted to each scam.What’s amazing about these web design scams So when the legitimate cardholder disputes the payment the business is left holding the bag on the money retrieved from their account and what they transferred to the scammer. As I’m sure you’ve figured out, the fix is that the card used is stolen and the third party is actually the scammer. I imagine your correspondence with your ‘client’ has been along these line. Essentially, the scammer makes a payment (generally in the thousands) for a project, and pays more than they need so you can then transfer money direct to a third party (e.g. Designers such as yourself are common targets for a type of scam known as a Third Party Payout. The Fraud Prevention department at credit card payment processor Stripe put it like this: They’re called the Third Party Payout Scam, the Payment Reversal Scam, the Advanced Fee Scam or the Overpayment Scam. Be alert, trust your instincts and reach out to others in your professional community. In the web design industry, we’re all targets. ![]() We all know how prevalent scams are online, so it’s no surprise that these extend to specifically crafted web design scams, SEO scams and other scams that directly target photographers, designers and other creative professionals. What started as a simple text message turned into a call with the Secret Service (yeah, really). Recently, we’ve received a number of different requests for website redesign proposals that had some odd and striking similarities, enough to trigger alarm bells that something wasn’t right.
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