An Attempt At An Old-school Scam
From my good friend Helen’s blog dated April 15, 2017:
In this day of phishing; spoofing; identity theft; salami slicing, spam; trojan horses; and a 
seemingly endless supply of Nigerians who claim that they desperately need to get their money out of their home country, there seems to be no end to the lengths that some scammers will go to bilk you out of your money. Being good at spotting a con is more important than ever, since a scam is not always as obvious as one might think.
Old-time band vs. Old-school scam
I play in a big band called the Moonliters. Besides playing sax in the band, I also look after the website, and respond to the inquiries that the band gets through its contact page.
On March 20 we received an inquiry from someone with the email address twillam.au@gmail.com. This person wanted to know if we would be available to perform at a family reunion on May 5th from 2:00 – 7:00 pm. Apparently he was also going to use this medium (his word) to propose to his girlfriend Charllotte (no, I did not misspell that name). twillam.au also wanted to know where we were located.
A few things about this email niggled at my brain. The most obvious was that there was an .au in his email. I took a look, and there is an Abbotsford in Australia, so I informed him that we were in Abbotsford, Canada (about a 45 minute commute outside of Vancouver). If he was looking for a band in Australia, he couldn’t afford us, but we would be happy to talk with him further if he wanted a swing band for a Vancouver, Canada venue.
He replied that he was indeed looking for a band in Vancouver, and that he was working with an event planner. The venue he chose—which shall remain nameless—is the newest, and arguably most exclusive event venue in the city. However, it hadn’t been booked yet, and wouldn’t be until a few days prior to the event itself. Again, this niggled at my brain, since normally any event venue is of course booked months in advance.
Since the show was to be during the day, we were going to have to find many subs if we were to do the show, since a great many of the members of The Moonliters are music teachers, or have other day jobs.
This reminds me of the scams I get from “travel agencies” every year inviting us to perform on a cruise and then you find out you have to pay for the cruise. And then there are the Play in DC scams where you then have to pay for travel, hotel, and food. Um yeah … no. There is so many bad things happening out there.
The Bis Key Chronicles 