Beware of Scams for Videographers/Editors on Craigslist!

[Centro]

On CL...

1) deal locally and personally
2) if someone on CL actually agrees to pay your full fee, 99% of the time it's a scam : )

 

[James Carpenter]

My name is Andrea Purdon from M&G Investment International UK. I want to know if there is any availability for production/film services for our company regional annual meeting. They are coming for meeting in your country and city. We expect 30 Investors at the meeting. If there is availability as we want you to organize the event for us. kindly let me know about the dates and the quotes..

cash is king.

also, the majority of the email responses are automated and don't actually offer up any specific info like location (see above)

 

[zijital]

I pretty much assume everything on Craigslist is a scam.

I think about 95% is, & if you're looking for work on CL you need your BS meter at full power. I replied to a lot of postings & was willing to walk away (& did) from some jobs where red lights were going off. Still I have made some money off jobs I've found on CL & met some other contacts in my area through those jobs.

If anyone, at any time, under any circumstances, offers any sort of transaction where they intentionally overpay you with the idea that you're supposed to refund them the difference -- run. That tactic is just plain scammy.

Here is a circumstance... When buying a house you can "overpay" the seller & then get the money back to buy "points" & get a lower interest rate from the bank. If you're staying in a house a long time, this can potentially save you thousands & thousands of dollars. But when you're buying property you should be paying a lawyer who is looking over everything & looking out for you to make sure this is a good deal for you.

If you're the seller, you'd probably be willing to go along with an overpayment because you want to sell & keeping the buyer happy at no cost to you can mean you keep the buyer.

Flip side is nearly ANY job on CL is NOT going to be paying well enough to bring in lawyers & documents & blah blah blah. Get an overpayment like this on a one off job, it is probably going to be a scam.


Plus, who's boss pay's for someone's birthday party to be video taped? I can see a boss buying a cake, but red flags should be flying HIGH on this transaction.