Today I received a message in my email from my website’s comment form. Now, I do absolutely get cold contacts through this form that are absolutely legit and lead to perfectly good projects. Some of my favorite projects have come from cold contacts from that form. However, it’s the internet. Not everything on the internet is safe or true. Just for self-preservation, I’m always just a little suspicious of new inquiries that come to me this way.
The message I received today read:
Name: Joan
Joan
Email: joanfallk@gmail.com
Message:
Hello,
I am Joan. I got your contact details online. Can you work on an illustration project and get it ready before the due date? I have prepared the scenarios to be illustrated. I just need an illustrator or cartoonist to draw the images. . Please get back to me for more details. I prefer email and text correspondence for record purposes.
208-505-8842
Warm regards.
Now, this message isn’t glaringly wrong but just seems a little off to me.
She got my contact details online? Well, sure. She contacted me through my website’s contact form. That seems a little odd to mention.
Can I work on an illustration project and get it ready before the due date? An unspecified due date. Again, seems a little obvious. Of course, if I take a project, It’ll be done by the due date. I won’t take a project if I don’t believe I can meet the due date. It’s surprising she’d mention that because it’s just a part of the job.
Saying she’s prepared the scenarios to be illustrated is fine, but an awkward way to state it.
At this point I’m pretty sure this is a scam, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why. Maybe I’m overreacting. It could be legit. I figure I can spare a couple more minutes to respond just to verify one way or another. So, I said:
Hi Joan,
Karen B. Jones
Thank you for contacting me. Depending on the details on the illustration project, I can probably help.
Can you tell me more about your project?
Thank you,
Illustrator
She responded fairly quickly with:
Hello Karen,
Joan
Thank you for your interest in this project. The illustrations/images are to be used for a presentation in a Workshop coming up soon. The title of the workshop is FAMILY – THE NUCLEUS OF THE SOCIETY. We have broken it down into Phase 1 and Phase 2.This is Phase 1. The attendees are students between the ages of 17 and 25. I require your service to illustrate the under-listed scenarios. Please make it a horizontal (Landscape) presentation, Cartoon styled (2D images),full illustration ( head to toe), colored (CMYK) but a plain white background. The illustrations should fit on a standard letter size – (8.5 x 11″) and be delivered in PDF format. I want 1 year exclusive right to the images. Also, note that these illustrations will be handed out to the participants in printed form. I just want the illustrations to paint a vivid picture of the theme of the workshop. The delivery date for the images is January 27, 2024. This is the outline of the scenarios to illustrate:
* A Caucasian Family : Father, Mother and their 2 teenage children (any gender) all standing and clothed.
* A Black Family : Father, Mother and their 3 teenage children ( any gender) all standing and clothed.
* A group (not more than 5) of young and middle aged guys with the caption ‘Uncles’
* A group (not more than 5) of young and mid aged ladies with the caption ” Aunts”
* An elderly woman and an elderly man standing by side with a caption “Grandparents”
My budget for the job is $700 per piece( Total is $3500 for the first phase). Let me know if that’s fine. If it’s not please get back to me with the price quote and what would be your preferred mode of payment? I’m proposing a certified bank draft, a cashier’s check or bank certified check considering the amount involved. I look forward to reading from you soon.
Warm regards.
So, this client sounds rather corporate (AI generated?) compared to the typical legit client that contacts me through my contact form. Usually corporate-sounding clients come in through my art rep and the contact form brings in mostly self-publishing authors. So, right off I’m skeptical.
However, she wants head-to-toe cartoon figures drawn isolated on white. Lately I have been posting art samples of just such images. Maybe that’s why she contacted me. It’s certainly something I could do. So that’s a point in her favor. Maybe she’s for real.
She already knows exactly how much she wants to pay without feeling me out at all on how much I’d want to charge. To be fair, I do have clients come to me with a set budget, but they’re generally publisher clients coming in through my art rep. Also, without getting into my pricing structure, this is suspiciously high for what she’s asking for.
Her target audience are people aged 17-25. She wants cartoon art from a children’s illustrator for an audience of young adults? That doesn’t seem to fit. Now, I will happily illustrate for all ages, but cartoons showing simple happy families just don’t seem to match the audience.
However, nothing for sure. Any of those details might be absolutely fine.
To me, the big red flag is that she’s really quick to suggest a certified bank draft, a cashier’s check, or bank certified check. This indicates it’s probably a fake check scam. More on that here. Usually, I use Paypal when accepting payments from clients that cold contact me through the internet. It’s safer for both parties that way.
She also hasn’t told me anything at all about who she is or who her organization is, or even very much about the purpose of this family values themed workshop.
So, I decided to bait her one last time. I considered just telling her to contact my art rep, but I don’t really want to make Janet deal with her. That seems mean. So, instead I asked her:
What organization do you represent? Is this a church workshop?
Karen B. Jones
Thank you,
Her response was:
Hello Karen,
Joan Falken
I am an independent academic consultant. I work part-time as a researcher and I also teach music on the side. That is how I earn my living. From time to time I organize seminars and workshops to educate the younger generation on chosen subject matter and hire professionals to give speeches at these seminars. This is absolutely free at no cost whatsoever to the participants of the workshop. I approach well-meaning individuals, organizations and large corporations for sponsorship of these programs and present proposals to them. As a giveback initiative, most sponsors want to be part of it. I do not source clients from any online platform. I organize, get a sponsor and meet deadlines. Below is my contact information:
Joan Falken
1210 E McKinley St
Boise, ID 83712
208-505-8842
The illustrations will be used in a slide lecture and the sole aim of the workshop is to enlighten the younger generations on the importance of the family as the single most crucial foundation of every society. To teach them family values and impact them with adequate knowledge about family and the role of the family in the society.
We cannot over-emphasize the need to teach the younger generation the importance of the protection of the family, themselves and appropriate social interaction.
Warm regards.
Hey, lookey there! We’ve got an Academic Event Organizer! Ding-ding-ding! That cinches it.
Definitely a scam.
(More on the Academic Event Organizer scam here.)
Did you notice her email was joanfalk@gmail.com but she finally signed her full name there at the end as Joan Falken, not Falk. I’m not sure if that means anything, but given the rest, I don’t like it.
Oh, and I looked up her address on google. Now, this isn’t definitive, but in today’s world, google can pretty much always find an address, if it’s a real address. In this case, it found a crossroads, but none of the buildings around it have that house number. So, I’m pretty sure the address doesn’t exist.
Did you notice she’s supposedly a freelancer, but didn’t link to a website for her freelance business? She’s also not on linkedIn.
And then the whole emphasis on traditional family values for young adults bothers me. I don’t want to get too political on this blog, but the phrase is so often a dog whistle. Even if it’s not a scam, I don’t want to do a project for a seminar that’s going to turn out to be some sort of anti-LGBTQ, purity culture event.
So, yeah. You all be warned. Stay safe.
Karen B. Jones - Illustrator 