Scam Alert!

Edited: October 9, 2025, 5:41 PM · I'm sure that any teacher on this board has, at one time or another, received an email that reads more or less like this:
Hi there,
How are you doing today and I hope you are having a great weekend? My wife and I are looking to hire a private Violin tutor for our 12yr old son, His name is Michael and he is a 6th grader. What we really want for him is a general improvement with his Violin and in any areas he might have difficulties with. If you are available, Kindly email me back on markd7062@gmail.com with your hourly rates and hopefully an arrangement can be duly made then. Thanks for your time and have a wonderful day!
Thank you!
Best regards,

OR something like this:

Hello,
How are you doing? My name is Clinton Bilotta, I'm looking for a music private tutor for my daughter Beverly, She is 14 years old, I'd like to know if you are available. Also, let me know your area of specialization, fee, preferred location and policy with regard to cancellations and make-up lessons. The lessons can start by third week of this month August 2019.
Hope to hear back from you soon.
Thanks,
Clinton Bilotta.

As I hope is immediately clear, this is a scam so old it’s likely from dial-up internet days. Red flags include
a) not addressing me by name
b) often not even specifically mentioning the instrument I teach (e.g., in the second email)
c) no musically relevant information (e.g., repertoire played, length of time the prospective student has been playing, etc.)
d) no specificity regarding geographical location
e) immediate zeroing in on financial matters
f) craptastic grammar (either indicating scammers being from overseas and/or them pre-filtering for people relatively easily distracted by money)

In case anyone isn’t familiar with this scam, the way it works is that you may expect to name your fee for several months of lessons at once, and then be sent a check for much more than three months' worth of lesson fees, along with a convoluted story about how the check includes overpayment because (insert convoluted story here) and can you, kind teacher, please deposit the overpayment and reimburse the parent the difference between the check you received and the cost of lessons. Obviously, the check you received bounces, but it doesn't do so immediately. It briefly looks legitimate, you duly send out the requested reimbursement, your money is real and really gone and the check you received bounces like the rubber chew toy that it is.

These parasites have my undying enmity because of whom they target; it's not as though music teachers are notoriously stinking rich. But as of three days ago, a relatively new scam swam across my radar and I wanted to be sure to let everyone know about it, both to immunize my colleagues from being duped and, maybe, even in hopes of catching this particular scammer.

The scam began relatively innocently with an email I received entitled "Booking Inquiry". It came from a "Betty Garner" who had, supposedly, come across some of my videos on Instagram and YouTube and wanted to book me for a corporate event. My suspicions were first aroused when I asked for some details about the event - whether there was a piano, whether there was a programming theme, etc. - and got a nonsensical reply

"The facilities are top notch,” wrote good ol’ Betty “sound and other equipment needed are available. There will be provision for the flight and hotel. $1500 is within our budget, there are other entertainers in the house and we understand that transportation and delay can be an issue, so we have arranged for a chauffeur service to pick you up at your preferred location and bring you to your hotel, and then to the event venue"

I wrote back asking again for some clarification of whether there's a piano, what the format of the musical portion of the event would be, whether everything would be spelled out in a contract, etc. and received
“Our facilities are state-of-the-art—with top-notch sound systems and all the essential equipment you might need. Of course, if you prefer to use any of your own gear to ensure the best performance, that option is completely available. We operate without content restrictions, providing you full creative freedom.
Also, I’ll like to know if you will be comfortable receiving payment via a check. We understand that some performers prefer other modes of payment, and we want to ensure that you are comfortable with our payment method.”

By this point, I was fairly sure I was dealing with a variant of the teacher scam, but was amused, the same day, to be speaking with a conductor friend and mentioning this almost-certain scam. “What was the fee?” my conductor friend asked. I told him it was for $1,500. “And it came from Betty Garner?” he asked. I expressed surprise that the same scammer had targeted him. “She offered me that fee for a full symphony orchestra,” he dryly responded.

So, certain of this being a scam, I decided to play along to see how “Betty Garner” would proceed. Sure enough, she was LASER-focused on my having a chauffeur – what sort of Artiste would I be if I didn’t, after all?! – and, sure enough, she sent both a check and a contract. The contract was remarkable for both its overall brevity, its total silence regarding anything to do with the actual supposed event other than the date and location, and the disproportionally huge emphasis – over a paragraph long – devoted to chauffeur issues. The check was a curious matter. She asked for my bank name (utterly irrelevant, of course, for receiving a check) and I gave the name of a bank at which I have no accounts, of course. The check she then sent was
a) drawn on Citibank and looked fairly legitimate, except
b) featured neither her name, nor the name of her supposed corporate entity, but of some never-before-mentioned organization
c) for $1,000 more than the fee, supposedly as reimbursement for the chauffeur service and flights, etc.
d) AND MOST CURIOUS: already endorsed on the back with an obviously electronic signature.

I did go the extra mile: called my own bank, spoke to the branch manager, whom I know personally, described the situation, and asked if there’s some esoteric way in which, by trying to deposit an already-endorsed, fraudulent check the check’s issuer would be able to withdraw the amount of the check from the account into which one is attempting to deposit said check. My bank branch manager friend asked me to repeat that…

No, as far as the branch manager knows, there’s no way for the fraudulent check to siphon funds from one’s account. And, for what it’s worth, good ol’ “Betty Garner” has since written back asking if I’ve deposited the check. I told her that I sure had (smiley face, smiley face) and that I was waiting for it to clear. Within a day, “Betty” inquired whether the check had cleared – at which I was mildly surprised, as I expected that talk of a check clearing might scare her off – and, when I told her it had, “Betty” provided me with bank routing information for sending the chauffeur service the excess $1,000 so they could arrange my flights and hotels and cars and mink coats and fabulous prizes and….

So, today, I called the bank to which “Betty” was urging me to send my travel stipend. Spoke to their online fraud team. Called the FBI. Spoke to THEIR online fraud team. Long story short? Even with a receiving bank, an account number (which, the bank fraud team reassured me, was too many digits to be one of their numbers), a SWIFT code, a routing number, a bank branch address for the receiving bank, the receiving bank plans on doing precisely nothing. The FBI has an online form to fill out, as a result of which, they’re also going to leap into action and swoop down on the foul criminal…. I’m just messing around. They, too, will do precisely nada.

Which is why these grifting parasites proliferate, of course: because their victims will be too embarrassed to tell their tales, and any retribution, any consequence, will be nonexistent.

So why, you ask after slogging your way through this long screed, am I even posting this? Well, for one passive reason and one active one. The passive reason is to alert all you lovely people – and ESPECIALLY all you lovely freelancing musicians – to a slightly new variation on an old mini-plague.

But the ACTIVE reason is to solicit the hive-mind wisdom for the best sting for good ol’ Betty. For instance, “she” has asked for my phone number. I intended to supply her with the bank’s online fraud department number (and say that’s my old cell phone) and the FBI’s Washington DC office number, claiming it for my home landline. But can anyone here suggest any fun stuff to do with the bank routing information “Betty” provided to attempt to extract her score? Or some additional mischief, inconceivable to my innocent, pristine, mischief-handicapped mind? (I was never any good with pranks, in case that’s not painfully obvious.)

I sit back, veritably wrung out from this Tolstoy-length post and eagerly await all your diabolical plans … (where’s Baldrick when one needs him?)… or any suggestions you have about how to see that “Betty” is expeditiously introduced to the inside of a courtroom.

Replies (6)

Nickie McNichols

October 9, 2025, 8:47 PM · Thank you.Emil. This happened to me several years ago about playing for a fancy wedding in the next county over. I showed it to a more internet savvy friend, who recognized it as a scam. I put it in the spammer folder, deleted it, and forgot about it till just now.

Mary Ellen Goree

October 9, 2025, 9:34 PM · I recently got a similar email, asking my availability to play at a wedding. The email assured me that I could perform in person or by zoom. I responded with an email pointing out that it sounded like a scam, and asking exactly how one could play at a wedding “by zoom.” No answer, of course.

When I get the teacher scam text, I respond as follows:

Thank you for contacting the FBI fraudulent student department! An agent will be assigned to your case in the next two to three business days.

(Not original; I borrowed this idea from a colleague)

Stephen Symchych

October 9, 2025, 10:04 PM · Be careful about depositing checks. If it comes back to them with your signature, bank name, and account number, they might decide to
have someone fill out a deposit slip and get some cash back from the teller after putting a bad check into the account.

In general, be careful about any info normally printed on your checks and deposit slips.

Paul Deck

October 9, 2025, 11:13 PM · I got some of these some years ago, usually asking me to tutor some teenager.

The other thing about depositing a bad check is that some banks, in the past, charged you a fee if someone ELSE's check bounced, not just your own. I'm not sure banks do that any more.

What's more, behind these scam-shops are often horror stories about human trafficking.

joel quivey

October 10, 2025, 1:41 AM · I got one of those music teacher scam attempts by email. At some point in the exchange I asked something like:--"So, you want to send your teenage daughter for a private session with an adult male who you have never met, in another country ?" Silence.

Will Wilkin

October 10, 2025, 8:32 AM · I have played with scammers by stalling for time before giving them what they want, and meanwhile asking them philosophical questions about ethics and self-respect and what exactly makes a person respectable or good.

Scam Alert!

Replies (6)

Subscribe

Laurie's Books