It just seems odd. Anyone else gotten spam through PPA, or should I take this guy seriously?
Greetings!.
My name is Joe and my wife's name is Pamela, we live and work as wine producers in Malaysia and will be relocating to the State of Georgia,USA on the 23rd of December,2009.
Could you please spare a few seconds to view our website : www.whqt.org
I came across your contact information on ppa.com and I hereby write to request if you will be available to offer 4hours of photographic services for the celebration of our 5th Wedding Anniversary on our arrival to the States. Myself,my wife,my lovely daughter-Debbie and about 12 family members and friends will be present.
Could you please provide answers to these questions if you are interested in this offer
1)Will you be available to provide this service on any date between December 26th and December 31st if so which exact date will you have time so as to include this in our plan?
2)What is your address location in the Georgia so as to estimate how close you are to us ?
Should you require further information, please do not hesitate to contact me on my phone no :01160173305450
Regards,
Joe J Akins
Winery Headquarters
92 Jalan Keranji,
Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
There are a couple of things that make it look like spam, the website, the fact they are asking for your address, though at the same time it's personalised enough to be genuine.
I don't see any harm in following up though, just in case it is genuine. I see in your profile you have Atlanta, Georgia, I think that's about as specific as they need and still suitably vague. I'm sure if it's spam you should be able to turn up a search for it or someone here will have seen it before.
What seems to stick out the most to me is why would they want to know your exact location and exact time you could preform a service for them? Could they be wanting to pull you out of your residence for X-number of hours so someone can break in your home?
i'd be wary of almost everyone who contacts you "out of the blue". I mean yes it could be legit but not likely nowadays. there seems to be so much of this crap going on right now. a friend of my was contacted to offer her service as a limo driver when they arrive in the U.S. and sent her a check in advance to cover the costs. Everything in her correspondence with them seemed legit so she agreed. When the check arrived it was for more than the agreed amount and she contacted them and they asked her to go ahead and deposit the check and send her a check of her own for the difference. Upon further investigation she found out they were bogus and their check was no good.
Got the same email from Malaysia. I did respond but now regret I did. I was suitably vague but really wondering about this because I checked the website -- bogus. I actually used to work in Brunei/Borneo but never saw any wineries there. Did you hear back?
What seems to stick out the most to me is why would they want to know your exact location and exact time you could preform a service for them? Could they be wanting to pull you out of your residence for X-number of hours so someone can break in your home?
Common scammer trick. Once you give them any personal info (bank account numbers, phone numbers, address) then they know you trust them and they can proceed with the scam.
Don't forget...if it sounds too good to be true (someone offering you $$$, someone offering to pay you much more than you advertise for products or services, if you have any listed for sale) it usually is. Especially anyone asking for your home address, phone #, bank account #, Paypal #, credit card #...they're getting cannier by the day.
ie, I am trying to sell a videocam on two local sites for $450 CDN. Buddy contacts me, offers to pay me $790 for videocam and shipping to his gf in Lagos, Nigeria. He asked for my PayPal account #; it was a local sale site so I said cash in hand, or nothing. Did also tell him I was onto him and his scam, and to go screw himself.
They do not grow grapes there. But give him a date if it is ok with you and tell him that there isn't a place in Atlanta where you can't be in a couple of hours, then see what happens
