If You Are a Small Service Provider - Beware of Predators

There are small businesses and very small businesses and one-man-bands. Very small businesses (and one-man-bands) tend to be service suppliers.

My wife received a post via a Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy Group on LinkedIn today. Most people in that Group are - obviously - small service suppliers or one-man-bands.

Someone in Amsterdam called a member of the Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy Group who works in Rhode Island. That someone asked to book ten hypnotherapy sessions.

The therapist quoted $850 for ten sessions. He received cheques totalling $3,000.

The therapist then obviously e-mailed the 'client' to say that he had been overpaid.

The 'client' said that it was an error on the part of his US agent, and asked the therapist to bank the cheques, subtract the $850 and send the remainder to his travel agent - and gave full details of where to send the excess cash.

Fortunately, the therapist waited for the cheques to clear before sending any money to the 'travel agent', because the cheques were drawn on a ficticious account, and they all bounced.

The therapist in question believes that his 'client' may be targeting therapists, and very rightly posted on LinkedIn to warn whomever he could, as best he could.

My wife is certainly a therapist, but she worked in the credit and collection industry for many years, and I've never known her to be a fool. She believes that this person is likely not working alone and may target any small service provider - not just in the United States, but anywhere at all - and I think she's right.

And we both think that whilst this scam is amateurish and in its infancy at the moment, it's likely to get a lot more sophisticated as time goes on.

If you are a one-man-band or small service provider - or even a not so small service provider - you need to look out for this scam. And the scams that are likely to grow out of it.