A Tale of Two Photo Scams; Part. 1: The One that Was — A Fashion Photo Assignment

“I blame the Nigerians”; Pt. 1: The Photography Assignment that was a SCAM.

or: “Look Ma, I’m gonna be a Fashion Footwear Assignment Photographer!”

(Read as: The Announcer from the old TV Series, Dragnet) ” Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.” — Except the name hasn’t been changed.

I was up all night writing this after I came close to being scammed. (Sorta’ — or not.)

I was recently approached via email by someone supposedly representing themselves as Daniel Mitri, a writer/producer working for Complex Media who said he saw my portfolio on PhotoShelter, asking if I would be interested in doing a Fashion Footwear assignment photoshoot.

After some initial communication, he said he would pay me $2200 + $4400 for two models provided I could deliver the images by X-Date. He sent me a contract and FEDEX’d me a very official-looking check for nearly $5,000. I was to keep $700 as a deposit on my services and then I was to pay the balance out to the model agency that he would specify.

THE SCAM: Known as the Nigerian 419 Scam, or the Check/Advance Fee Payment scam, it traces back to those emails were a Nigerian Princess reaches out to you after her dead General-Uncle left her a Million Dollars that she’s willing to share with you if you’ll deposit the check and pay the $10,000 ‘Funds Release Fee’ to her bank. In this case, I get hired for a photo assignment and they send me a check first to cover a deposit on my services and the cost of hiring the talent. I deposit the check then wait a day for funds to become available. I then pay the ‘Model Agency’ — which is fake; Real money goes from my bank account to theirs. Then about two weeks later the check would bounce, but I’d still be out the real money I paid to the (fake) Models. Fraud, pure and simple.

When the initial request came in, I googled both Daniel Mitri and Complex Media. Both seemed legitimate. Complex is a large media outlet for youth culture. Daniel Mitri shows to be an author on several web-based media platforms. Despite a couple yellow-flags, I decided to continue the communication appearing quite professionally interested in the opportunity to see if the yellow flags would turn into a real assignment or would there be red flags that would lead me to believe it was a total scam. As you can guess, it turned out to be the latter.

I want to share some of the Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red Flags so that other less experienced photographers won’t fall victim to these scammers.

Some of the Green Flags include:

* The initial email said they found me on PhotoShelter; I do have my image archive library hosted there.
* Complex Media is a legitimate company.
* A link to an article on the Complex website written by the same person.
* A project budget for both photographer and talent.
* Lots of Legitimate industry buzzwords, i.e. models, talent, stylists, wardrobe, image rights, etc..
* Work with Two Models; Five ‘Looks’ each.
* They wanted 30 high-res digital files delivered via Dropbox.
* The Contract they sent had appropriate Logos and lots of legal-looking terms and conditions.

But on closer inspection, it should be noted there were a number of yellow, orange, and red flags photographers should keep an eye out for when a potential client wants to hire you.

YELLOW FLAGS:

* Off/Bad English Grammar: “I’m looking forward to having a good working reference with you at the end. Your photographic works are quite aesthetic.”

* The email address was a generic @gmail account. (See the TIP listed below)
* They wanted to communicate via Text instead of email.

ORANGE FLAGS:

* Inappropriate Genre: “…searching for a Photographer to work with on an ongoing fashion style and footwear blogging. I feel you will be perfect for our Spring season photo shoot gig.” – Um, I’m an outdoor travel & landscape photographer. My portfolio doesn’t contain a single fashion photo, much less footwear. (The closest I have is featured in this post.)

* Hi-Res Resolution – they wanted the 30 Hi-Res images sized to 800×600. (Um, that’s not Hi-Res.)

* Some basic questions were not answered; I asked about additional production expenses like location fees, catering, permits, etc., that went unanswered through several emails. Every time I asked which of my images caught their eye, or to provide samples of previous shoots for a ‘Look/Feel’ reference, these questions were always ignored.

RED FLAGS:

* The Contract, despite having company logos had no official contact information and was missing other important legitimate contractual clauses.

* The Contract specified images would be for “Personal” use only.

* Despite agreeing to let me wind up paying for and using my own models, I was suddenly being asked to pay over $4000 for the wardrobe and stylist.

* When the very official check arrived, it came with some incredibly odd instructions – to deposit in an ATM and then immediately send them a cellphone photo of the deposit slip. – No – DON’T. No One Does That. — Not. One. Client. Ever.

* Once they thought the check had been deposited, they sent me instructions for taking cash out of my bank account and then depositing nearly $4200 into a bitcoin ATM virtual wallet.

At that point, I told them I had discovered (with thanks from the help of my bank) that this was all a scam.

I contacted my local police department, and the short end of the stick was that because I hadn’t lost any money, they couldn’t investigate it as a crime. The other unfortunate truth as they explained it to me is that there are so many of these scammers operating in the shadows, it’s like swatting flies on the back of a horse on a hot summer day; too many and too futile to waste the resources. The best help for victims to see justice they said would come from the Feds because these scammers operate across state line, but basically, they wouldn’t suggest anyone hold their breath.

Through the course of ‘being scammed’ I discovered that:

Complex Media has had to put a disclaimer/warning on the top of their contact page: “If you are a photographer/model/stylist and have been unexpectedly solicited to work for Complex, please verify the credentials of the hiring individual or company by contacting us…” One editor had to put a disclaimer warning folks on the top of her LinkedIn account after they had spoofed her name as the contact for this scam.

The scam has been running for awhile using the same M.O. and money amounts, but with other editor names and websites. PDN reported one such case in January. In the comments section, you can see my pal Daniel Mitri was at this for awhile. However, one comment mentions it being fishy and to NEVER Pay a model in advance, yet a discussion I had with a San Francisco-based model agency confirms that models are contracted, invoiced, and paid in advance of most shoots… if you use professional models.

The scam has also been happening to models, as noted through the site Model Mayhem, where they say they have a shoot the model has been hired for, including photographer and location, and they send a check for $3,500. The model is to take out $500 for themselves, and then pay $3000 to a stylist for their wardrobe.

PetaPixel also reported on this scam last year: but you had to dig through the comments to get some of the details on how the scam works.

Sadly, it turns out after googling Photography Assignment Scam, along with Daniel Mitri’s name, I found out a 67-year-old photographer who works out of his home in Connecticut fell victim to this scam, losing more than $4,500.

TIP: If someone contacts you for a job from an official website or company and they use a generic email address, tell them that because of ongoing scams and to be safe for everybody’s protection, you’d like them – or someone high in the company like another Editor – to confirm the details by using an email address that comes from the actual company/domain, i.e. @complexmedia.com

TIP: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is; be sure to google the names and companies, but also sadly add in search queries that include (photography)(assignment) ‘scam’ or ‘fraud’. – If I added ‘scam’ to Daniel Mitri’s name, a whole different set of very revealing search results would be returned.

Under the ‘too good to be true’ banner, anyone — based on my portfolio — asking me to shoot a footwear fashion assignment was probably out to lunch or high on crack, the same way as if a wildlife photographer would suddenly be asked to photograph a high-society 5th-Avenue wedding. (OK, …maybe if you’re Art Wolfe, Frans Lanting, or Thomas Mangelsen.)

Finally: If your client ever asks you to deposit a check that you feel questionable about, tell the client you’ll be unable to make any payments against that check pending a 30 to 60-day (90 days would be best) hold period to confirm the check will clear funds.

The best defense we photographers have to help protect against scams and scammers that target us and our industry is to stand strong and share this information so that more folks can be warned and know what to look out for so they hopefully won’t become victims.

Read Part II — “The Photo Scam that Wasn’t.” — or … How I almost lost a sale to a US Embassy ‘cuz I thought it was a scam.

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Gary Crabbe is an award-winning commercial and editorial outdoor travel photographer and author based out of the San Francisco Bay Area, California. He has seven published books on California to his credit, including “Photographing California; v1-North”, which won the prestigious 2013 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal award as Best Regional title. His client and publication credits include the National Geographic Society, the New York Times, Forbes Magazine, TIME, The North Face, Subaru, L.L. Bean, Victoria’s Secret, Sunset Magazine, The Nature Conservancy, and many more. Gary is also a photography instructor and consultant, offering both public and private photo workshops. He also works occasionally a professional freelance Photo Editor.

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