This is bonkers!! I went through this entire scenario just these past few days (I received the first message on Feb 19, 2019). I'm really pissed 'cause I needed that money but I'm glad my scam radar went off before it went any further.

Everything in this thread is IDENTICAL to what I experienced except that the company name was Great Elms, not Living Stone Furniture. I was almost upset that I didn't charge him more than what I originally quoted him after he told me the "consultant" charged him $3,500 just for photos.

He said he was in Delaware to handle some medical issues and that he was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. He basically had me up until he told me to create a new invoice for nearly $4,300, take out my fee, then send the rest to the "consultant." His message to me about the consultant and an issue with payment was:

"I got in touch with the consultant but I'm having a little issue with him concerning my agreement with him."

He went on to say:

"I'd signed the agreement to make cash or bank deposit to him for his payment but due to my present condition I was diagnosed with lunch cancer and will undergo a surgery soon so I'm limited and I won't be able to do that."

A little broken English but I got caught up in the lung cancer thing, which frankly disarmed me as I realized that I was actually feeling sorry for him.

As it were when he asked me to send him the money via Quickbooks invoice I was actually considering Quickbooks after dumping Freshbooks. I haven't had many clients lately and spending $25 just for invoicing was a lot (I plan to start using Zoho; Quickbooks invoices are way too simple and don't have basic features like a field for a deposit or discounts).

I then proceeded to tell him that if he paid me via credit card he'd be losing 2.5% of the fee, but his answer to that was to just add that percentage to the overall total.

After that I got suspicious so my initial reaction was to ask him to confirm his identity. We'd only conversed via text and email so I was hoping he could do something to confirm this wasn't a scam. But before I sent out the text I decided to look up his name and the word "scam" then boom, this Reddit page showed up and I was blown away by how accurate it was compared to my experience.

I was also thinking of just having him paying the invoice but then thought that if that money comes through and I use it my bank could come after me if I spent it then I'd be in even worse trouble.

Anyway, I was gonna send him this Reddit link but then decided to just ignore him. Well, I did say "I know. You can stop now." but then he texted back that he didn't understand but I'm sure he (or she disguised as Richard) will get the point.

I've received clients via text in the past so I had no reason not to trust this wasn't a solid lead.

Oh well. If anyone has $4,000 they'd like to send without a catch I'll gladly take it off your hands.

Good night!