This week i have received 2 website quote request emails from the USA (supposedly). Both for restaurants. I have quoted a price to both. They have then replied saying  they want to pay much more for a website: James Smith ‘My budget is not more than $5000’  and Stacy Seaman: ‘My budget is between $3000 to $8000’.

Then i get another email – from James:

I got your email.I think your message is clear and understandable. I would like us to finalize the payment method.

The problem now is that am not able to pay you using PayPal because am having issues with my PayPal account(My PayPal account Was debited twice when i made a transaction last week and the receiver dint receive the amount till date,its still on hold) and PayPal has not been able to resolve that for me yet,all they said is for me to stop using the PayPal account pending the time which they don’t know.Another option i could have use is a wire transfer from our bank to you but that will not work also because my bank advice me not to do that or use any merchandise pending the time i resolve all this issue at hand.

However,am able to have my assistant send you a cheque for your job.Do you have anyone in USA(A relative,brother,sister,colleague,contact etc) who can receive a cheque  on your behalf?

or from Stacy

I got your email. I think your message is clear and understandable.

The problem now is that am not able to pay you using PayPal because am having issues with my PayPal account(My PayPal account Was debited twice when i made a transaction last week and the receiver dint receive the amount till date, its still on hold) and PayPal has not been able to resolve that for me yet, all they said is for me to stop using the PayPal account pending the time which they don’t know.Another option i could have use is a wire transfer from our bank to you but that will not work also because my bank advice me not to do that or use any merchandise pending the time i resolve all this issue at hand.

However, am able to have my assistant send you a cheque for your job.Do you have anyone in USA(A relative, brother, sister, colleague, contact etc) who can receive a cheque on your behalf?

If you have someone who can receive a cheque on your behalf kindly get back to me with his name and address with phone number included then i will mail a cheque payment to him for the amount and it will get there in 2 days, you can proceed on my web design.

And i have to say that that is a crazy coincidence!
I have clients in the USA. And they are great. They can send curiously worded emails.

I cant work out what the scam is here. But it must be one.

UPDATE: read this: https://alexwright.net/blog/web-design/avoid-web-design-scams/
They’re called the Third Party Payout Scam, the Payment Reversal Scam, the Advanced Fee Scam or the Overpayment Scam.

There is, it seems, always a third person, a designer or someone mentioned in the email.  The idea is that they have a stolen credit card. They pay you an amount with it. You then pay the ‘designer or someone’ for something – a logo, content etc.. Soon the stolen credit card bounces the payment and you have to repay the money. But the ‘designer or someone’ has been paid and you cant get the money back for that. so, the scammer is the ‘designer or someone’.

UPDATE JAN 2025
I got another enquiry this week sounding  very similar – a Texas Restaurant ‘My budget is SUPER FLEXIBLE for the web design’ .
They wanted it to be be similar to a very cheap looking  site  – so i guess the hope was I would be tempted to charge a fortune and then suffer a Charge Back Scam